The Elementary Forms of the Religious LifeDurkheim, Émile
Religion
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Durkheim, Émile
Cults; Religion; Religion -- Philosophy; Rites and ceremonies; Totemism
The second mode of conception distinguished by Strehlow has the same
significance. In fact, the churinga, and more especially the particular
churinga that is called the namatuna, is considered a transformation of
the ancestor; according to Strehlow,[809] it is his body, just as the
nanja tree is. In other words, the personality of the ancestor, his
churinga and his nanja tree, are sacred things, inspiring the same
sentiments and to which the same religious value is attributed. So they
transmute themselves into one another: in the spot where an ancestor
lost his churinga, a sacred tree or rock has come out of the soil, just
the same as in those places where he entered the ground himself.[810] So
there is a mythological equivalence of a person of the Alcheringa and
his churinga; consequently, when the former throws a namatuna into the
body of a woman, it is as if he entered into it himself. In fact, we
have seen that sometimes he does enter in person after the namatuna;
according to other stories he precedes it; it might be said that he
opens up the way for it.[811] The fact that these two themes exist side
by side in the same myth completes the proof that one is only a doublet
of the other.
Moreover, in whatever way the conception may have taken place, there can
be no doubt that each individual is united to some determined ancestor
of the Alcheringa by especially close bonds. In the first place, each
man has his appointed ancestor; two persons cannot have the same one
simultaneously. In other words, a being of the Alcheringa never has more
than one representative among the living.[812] More than that, the one
is only an aspect of the other. In fact, as we already know, the
churinga left by the ancestor expresses his personality; if we adopt the
interpretation of Strehlow, which, perhaps, is the more satisfactory, we
shall say that it is his body. But this same churinga is related in the
same way to the individual who is believed to have been conceived under
the influence of this ancestor, and who is the fruit of his mystic
works. When the young initiate is introduced into the sanctuary of the
clan, he is shown the churinga of his ancestor, and someone says to him,
"You are this body; you are the same thing as this."[813] So, in
Strehlow's own expression, the churinga is "the body common to the
individual and his ancestor."[814] Now if they are to have the same body
it is necessary that on one side at least their two personalities be
confounded. Strehlow recognizes this explicitly, moreover, when he says,
"By the tjurunga (churinga) the individual is united to his personal
ancestor."[815]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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