Revival: How Natives Think (1926)

Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Lilian. A Clare

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351340472
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Levy-Bruhl speculates about what he posited as the two basic mind-sets of mankind; "primitive" and "Western." The primitive mind does not differentiate the supernatural from reality, but rather uses "mystical participation" to manipulate the world. Moreover, the primitive mind doesn't address contradictions. The Western mind, by contrast, uses speculation and logic. 'How Natives Think' IS an accurate and valuable contribution to anthropology.

Part I

Chapter I
Collective Representations in Primitives' Perceptions and the Mystical Character of Such

I

Before undertaking an investigation of the most general laws governing collective representations among undeveloped peoples, it may be as well to determine what the essential characteristics of these representations are, and thus avoid an ambiguity which is otherwise almost inevitable. The terminology used in the analysis of mental functions is suited to functions such as the philosophers, psychologists, and logicians of our civilization have formulated and defined. If we admit these functions to be identical in all human aggregates, there is no difficulty in the matter; the same terminology can be employed throughout, with the mental reservation that "savages" have minds more like those of children than of adults. But if we abandon this position—and we have the strongest reasons for considering it untenable—then the terms, divisions, classifications, we make use of in analysing our own mental functions are not suitable for those which differ from them; on the contrary, they prove a source of confusion and error. In studying primitive mentality, which is a new subject, we shall probably require a fresh terminology. At any rate it will be necessary to specify the new meaning which some expressions already in use should assume when applied to an object differing from that they have hitherto betokened.

This is the case, for instance, with the term "collective representations."

In the current parlance of psychology which classifies phenomena as emotional, motor, or intellectual, "representation" is placed in the last category. We understand by it a matter of cognizance, inasmuch as the mind simply has the image or idea of an object. We do not deny that in the actual mental life every representation affects the inclinations more or less, and tends to produce or inhibit some movement. But, by an abstraction which in a great many cases is nothing out of the ordinary, we disregard these elements of the representation, retaining only its essential relation to the object which it makes known to us The representation is, par excellence, an intellectual or cognitive phenomenon.

It is not in this way, however, that we must understand the collective representations of primitives. Their mental activity is too little differentiated for it to be possible to consider ideas or images of objects by themselves apart from the emotions and passions which evoke these ideas or are evoked by them. Just because our mental activity is more differentiated, and we are more accustomed to analysing its functions, it is difficult for us to realize by any effort of imagination, more complex states in which emotional or motor elements are integral parts of the representation. It seems to us that these are not really representations, and in fact if we are to retain the term we must modify its meaning in some way. By this state of mental activity in primitives we must understand something which is not a purely or almost purely intellectual or cognitive phenomenon, but a more complex one, in which what is really "representation" to us is found blended with other elements of an emotional or motor character, coloured and imbued by them, and therefore implying a different attitude with regard to the objects represented.

Moreover, these collective representations are very often acquired by the Individual in circumstances likely to make the most profound impression upon his sensibility. This is particularly true of those transmitted at the moment when he becomes a man, a conscious member of the social group, the moment when the initiation ceremonies cause him to undergo new birth,¹ when the secrets upon which the very life of the group depends are revealed to him, sometimes amid tortures which subject his nerves to the most severe tests. It would be difficult to exaggerate the intense emotional force of such representations. The object is not merely discerned by the mind in the form of an idea or image; according to the circumstances of the case, fear, hope, religious awe, the need and the ardent desire to be merged in one common essence, the passionate appeal to a protecting power—these are the soul of these representations, and make them at once cherished, formidable, and really sacred to the initiated. We must add, too, that the ceremonies in which these representations are translated into action, so to speak, take place periodically; consider the contagious effect of the emotional excitement of witnessing the movements which express them, the nervous exaltation engendered by excessive fatigue, the dances, the phenomena of ecstasy and of possession,—in fact everything which tends to revive and enhance the emotional nature of these collective representations. At any time during the intervals between the occurrences of these ceremonies, whenever the object of one of these representations once more arises in the consciousness of the "primitive," even should he be alone and in a calm frame of mind at the moment, it can never appear to him as a colourless and indifferent image. A wave of emotion will immediately surge over him, undoubtedly less intense than it was during the ceremonies, but yet strong enough for its cognitive aspect to be almost lost sight of in the emotions which surround it. Though in a lesser degree, the same character pertains to other collective representations—such, for instance, as those transmitted from generation to generation by means of myths and legends, and those which govern manners and customs which apparently are quite unimportant; for if these customs are respected and enforced, it is because the collective representations relating to them are imperative and something quite different from purely intellectual phenomena.

The collective representations of primitives, therefore, differ very profoundly from our ideas or concepts, nor are they their equivalent either. On the one hand, as we shall presently discover, they have not their logical character. On the other hand, not being genuine representations, in the strict sense of the term, they express, or rather imply, not only that the primitive actually has an image of the object in his mind, and thinks it real, but also that he has some hope or fear connected with it, that some definite influence emanates from it, or is exercised upon it. This influence is a virtue, an occult power which varies with objects and circumstances, but is always real to the primitive and forms an integral part of his representation. If I were to express in one word the general peculiarity of the collective representations which play so important a part in the mental activity of undeveloped peoples, I should say that this mental activity was a mystic one. In default of a better, I shall make use of this term— not referring thereby to the religious mysticism of our communities, which is something entirely different, but employing the word in the strictly defined sense in which "mystic " implies belief in forces and influences and actions which, though imperceptible to sense, are nevertheless real.

In other words, the reality surrounding the primitives is itself mystical. Not a single being or object or natural phenomenon in their collective representations is what it appears to be to our minds. Almost everything that we perceive therein either escapes their attention or is a matter of indifference to them. On the other hand, they see many things there of which we are unconscious. For instance, to the primitive who belongs to a totemic community, every animal, every plant, indeed every object, such as the sun, moon, and stars, forms part of a totem, and has its own class and sub-class. Consequently, each individual has his special affinities, and possesses powers over the members of his totem, class, and sub-class; he has obligations towards them, mystic relations with other totems, and so forth. Even in communities where this form does not exist, the group idea of certain animals (possibly of all, if our records were complete) is mystic in character. Thus, among the Huichols, "the birds that soar highest . . . are thought to see and hear everything, and to possess mystic powers, which are inherent in their wing and tail feathers." These feathers, carried by the shaman, "enable him to see and hear everything both above and below the earth ... to cure the sick, transform the dead, call down the sun, etc." ¹ The Cherokees believe that fishes live in companies like human beings, that they have their villages, their regular paths through the waters, and that they conduct themselves like beings endowed with reason.¹ They think, too, that illnesses—rheumatic affections in particular—proceed from a mystic influence exercised by animals which are angry with the hunters, and their medical practices testify to this belief.

In Malaya and in South Africa the crocodile, and in other places the tiger, leopard, elephant, snake, are the object of similar beliefs and practices, and if we recall the myths of which animals are the heroes, in both hemispheres, there is no mammal or bird or fish or even insect to which the most extraordinary mystic properties have not been attributed. Moreover, the magic practices and ceremonies which, among nearly all primitive peoples, are the necessary accompaniment of hunting and fishing, and the sacrificial rites to be observed when the quarry has been killed, are sufficiently clear testimony to the mystic properties and powers which enter into the collective representations relating to the animal world.

It is the same with plant life. It will doubtless suffice to mention the intichiuma, ceremonies described by Spencer and Gillen, designed to secure, in mystic fashion, the normal reproduction of plants,—the development of agrarian rites, corresponding with the hunting and fishing ceremonial, in all places where primitive peoples depend wholly or partly on the cultivation of the soil for their subsistence—and lastly, the highly unusual mystic properties ascribed to sacred plants, as, for instance, the soma in Vedic India, and the hikuli among the Huichols.

Again, if we consider the human body, we shall find that each organ of it has its own mystic significance, as the widespread practice of cannibalism and the rites connected with human sacrifices (in Mexico, for instance) prove. The heart, liver, kidney, the eyes, the fat, marrow, and so on, are reputed to procure such and such an attribute for those who feed on them. The orifices of the body, the excreta of all kinds, the hair and nail-parings, the placenta and umbilical cord, the blood, and the various fluids of the body, can all exercise magic influences.² Collective representations attribute mystic power to all these things, and many wide-spread beliefs and practices relate to this power. So, too, certain parts of plants and animals possess peculiar virtues. "Badi is the name given to the evil principle which . . . attends (like an evil angel) everything in his life. . . . Von de Wall describes it as the 'enchanting or destroying influence which issues from anything; for example, from a tiger which one sees, from a poisonous tree which one passes under, from the saliva of a mad dog, from an action which one has performed.'" ¹

Since everything that exists possesses mystic properties, and these properties, from their very nature, are much more important than the attributes of which our senses inform us, the difference between animate and inanimate things is not of the same interest to primitive mentality as it is to our own. As a matter of fact, the primitive's mind frequently disregards it altogether. Thus rocks, the form or position of which strike the primitive's imagination, readily assume a sacred character in virtue of their supposed mystic power. Similar power is ascribed to the rivers, clouds, winds. Districts in space, direction (the points of the compass), have mystic significance. When the Australian aborigines assemble in large numbers, each tribe, and each totem of a tribe, has its own place, a place assigned to it by virtue of its mystic affinity with a particular spatial region. Facts of a similar nature have been noted in North America. I shall not lay any stress on the rain, lightning, or thunder, the symbols of which play so important a part in the religious ceremonies of the Zuni, the Australian aborigines, and all aggregates where a prolonged drought is a serious menace to the very existence of the group. Finally, in Loango, the soil "is something more to the Bafioti than the scene upon which their lives are played out. There is in the ground, and there issues from it, a vital influence which permeates everything, which unites the present and the past. . . . All things that live owe their powers to the soil. . . . The people regard their land as a fief from their god . . . the ground is sacred." ² The same belief obtains among the North American Indians, who consider it sacrilege to till the ground, for by so doing they would run a risk of offending the mystic power and drawing down dire calamities upon themselves.

Even things made, and constantly used, by man have their mystic properties and can become beneficent or terrifying according to circumstances. Gushing, who had lived among the Zunis, had made them adopt him, and whose unusual versatility of mind led him finally to think like them, says that they, "no less than primitive peoples generally, conceive of everything made . . . whether structure or utensil or weapon, . . as living . . . a still sort of life, but as potent and aware nevertheless and as capable of functioning not only obdurately and resistingly, but also actively and powerfully in occult ways, either for good or for evil. As for living things they observe every animal is formed, and acts or functions according to its form—the fe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• PREFACE
• Contents
• PART I
• PART II
• PART III
• PART IV
• INDEX