Aspects of the Nature of the Sacred.—To exhibit the general character of the sacred as it exists for primitive religion it is simplest to take stock of various aspects recognized by primitive thought as expressed in language. If some, and not the least essential, of these aspects are quasi-negative, it must be remembered that negations—witness the Unseen, the Unknown, the Infinite of a more advanced theology—are well adapted to supply that mystery on which the religious consciousness feeds with the slight basis of conceptual support it needs. (I) The sacred as the forbidden. The primitive notion that perhaps comes nearest to our "sacred," whilst it immediately underlies the meanings of the Latin sacer and sanctus, is that of a taboo, a Polynesian term for which equivalents can be quoted from most savage vocabularies. The root idea seems to be that something is marked off as to be shunned, with the added hint of a mystic sanction or penalty enforcing the avoidance. Two derivative senses of a more positive import call for special notice. On the one hand, since that which is tabooed is held to punish the taboo breaker by a sort of mystic infection, taboo comes to stand for uncleanness and sin. On the other hand, since the isolation of the sacred, even when originally conceived in the interest of the profane, may be interpreted as self-protection on the part of the sacred as against defiling contact, taboo takes on the con notation of ascetic virtue, purity, devotion, dignity and blessed ness. Primary and secondary senses of the term between them cover so much ground that it is not surprising to find taboo used in Polynesia as a name for the whole system of religion, founded as it largely is on prohibitions and abstinences. (2) The sacred as the mysterious. Another quasi-negative notion of more restricted distribution is that of the mysterious or strange, as we have it expressed, for example, in the Siouan wakan, though possibly this is a derivative meaning. Meanwhile, it is certain that what is strange, new or portentous is regularly treated by all savages as sacred. (3) The sacred as the secret. The literal sense of the term churinga, applied by the Central Australians to their sacred objects, and likewise used more abstractly to denote mystic power, as when a man is said to be "full of churinga," is "secret," and is symptomatic of the esotericism that is a striking mark of Australian, and indeed of all primitive, religion, with its insistence on initiation, its exclusion of women, and its strictly enforced reticence concerning traditional lore and proceedings. (4) The sacred as the potent. Passing on to positive conceptions of the sacred, perhaps the most fundamental is that which iden tifies the efficacy of sacredness with such mystic or magical power as is signified by the mana of the Pacific or orenda of the Hurons, terms for which analogies are forthcoming on all sides. Of mom R. H. Codrington in The Melanesians, 119 n., writes: "It essentially belongs to personal beings to originate it, though it may act through the medium of water, or a stone or a bone. All Melanesian religion consists . . . in getting this mania for oneself, or getting it used for one's benefit." E. Tre gear's Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary shows how the word and its derivatives are used to express thought, memory, emotion, desire, will—in short, psychic energy of all kinds. It also stands for the vehicle of the magician's energy—the spell; which would seem likewise to be a meaning, perhaps the root meaning, of orenda (cf. J. N. B. Hewitt, American Anthropologist, N.S., iv. 4o). Whereas everything, perhaps, has some share of indwelling potency, whatever is sacred manifests this potency in an extraordinary degree, as typically the wonder-working leader of society, whose mana consists in his cunning and luck together. Altogether, in mana we have what is par excellence the primitive religious idea in its positive aspect, taboo representing its nega tive side, since whatever has mana is taboo, and whatever is taboo has mana. (5) The sacred as the animate. The term "ani mism," which embodies Tylor's classical theory of primitive re ligion, is unfortunately somewhat ambiguous. If we take it strictly to mean the belief in ghosts or spirits having the "vapor ous materiality" proper to the objects of dream or hallucination, it is certain that the agency of such phantasms is not the sole cause to which all mystic happenings are referred (though ghosts and spirits are everywhere believed in, and appear to be endowed with greater predominance as religious synthesis advances amongst primitive peoples). Thus there is good evidence to show that many of the early gods, notably those that are held to be espe cially well disposed to man, are conceived rather in the shape of magnified non-natural men dwelling somewhere apart, such as the Mungan-ngaur of the Kurnai of S.E. Australia (cf. A. Lang, The Making of Religion, x. seq.). Such anthropomorphism is with difficulty reduced to the Tylorian animism. The term, however, will have to be used still more vaguely, if it is to cover all attribution of personality, will or vitality. This can be more simply brought under the notion of mana. Meanwhile, since quasi mechanical means are freely resorted to in dealing with the sacred, as when a Maori chief snuffs up the sanctity his fingers have acquired by touching his own sacred head that he may restore the virtue to the part whence it was taken (R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, 165), or when uncleanness is removed as if it were a physical secretion by washing, wiping and so forth, it is hard to say whether what we should now call a "material" nature is not ascribed to the sacred, more especially when its transmis sibility after the manner of a contagion is the trait that holds the attention. It is possible, however, that the savage always dis tinguishes in a dim way between the material medium and the indwelling principle of vital energy, examples of a pure fetishism, in the sense of the cult of the purely material, recognized as such, being hard to find. (6) The sacred as the ancient. The prominence
of the notion of the Alcheringa "dreamtime," or sacred past, in Central Australian religion illustrates the essential connection perceived by the savage to lie between the sacred and the tra ditional. Ritualistic conservatism may be instanced as a practical outcome of this feeling. Another development is ancestor-wor ship, the organized cult of ancestors marking, however, a certain stage of advance beyond the very primitive, though the dead are always sacred and have mana which the living may exploit for their own advantage.
The foregoing views of the sacred, though starting from distinct conceptions, converge in a single complex notion, as may be seen from the many-sided sense borne by such a term as wakan, which may stand not only for "mystery," but also for "power, sacred, ancient, grandeur, ani mate, immortal" (\V. J. McGee, 15th Report of U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, 182). The reason for this convergence is that, whereas there is found great difficulty in characterizing the elusive nature of the sacred, its mode of manifesting itself is recognized to be much the same in all its phases. Uniform characteristics
the fecundity, ambiguity, relativity and transmissibility of its activity. (I) Fecundity. The mystic potency of the sacred is no fixed quantity, but is big with possibilities of all sorts. The same sacred person, object, act, will suffice for a variety of pur poses. Even where a piece of sympathetic magic appears to promise definite results, or when a departmental god is recognized, there would seem to be room left for a more or less indefinite expectancy. It must be remembered that the meaning of a rite is for the most part obscure to the participants, being overlaid by its traditional character, which but guarantees a general efficacy.
"Blessings come, evils go," may be said to be the magico-religious formula implicit in all socially approved dealings with the sacred, however specialized in semblance. (2) Ambiguity. Mystic potency, however, because of the very indefiniteness of its action, is a two edged sword. The sacred is not to be approached lightly. It will heal or blast, according as it is handled with or without due cir cumspection. That which is taboo, for instance, the person of the king, or woman's blood, is poison or medicine according as it is manipulated, being inherently just a potentiality for wonder working in any direction. Not but what primitive thought shows a tendency to mark off a certain kind of mystic power as wholly bad by a special name, e.g., the arungquilta of Central Australia; and here, we may note, we come nearest to a conception of magic as something other than religion, the trafficker in arungquilta being socially suspect, nay, liable to persecution, and even death (as amongst the Arunta tribe, see Spencer and Gillen, The Arunta, ii. 414 n.), at the hands of his fellows. On the other hand, wholly beneficent powers seem hardly to be recognized, unless we find them in beings such as Mungan-ngaur ("father-our"), who derive an ethical character from their association with the initiation ceremonies and the moral instruction given thereat (cf. Lang, /.c.). (3) Relativity. So far we have tended to represent the activity of the sacred as that of a universal force, somewhat in the style of our "electricity" or "mind." It remains to add that this activity manifests itself at numberless independent centres. These differ amongst themselves in the degree of their energy. One spell is stronger than another, one taboo more inviolable than another. W. H. R. Rivers (The Todas, 448) gives an interesting analysis of the grades of sanctity apparent in Toda religion. The gods of the hill-tops come first. The sacred buffaloes, their milk, their bells, the dairies and their vessels are on a lower plane; whilst we may note that there are several grades amongst the dairies, increase of sanctity going with elaboration of dairy ritual (cf. ibid. 232). Still lower is the dairyman, who is in no way divine, yet has sanctity as one who maintains a condition of cere monial purity. (4) Transmissibility. If, however, this activity originates at certain centres, it tends to spread therefrom in all directions. F. B. Jevons (in An Introduction to the History of Religion, vii.) distinguishes between "things taboo," which have the mystic contagion inherent in them, and "things tabooed," to which the taboo-infection has been transmitted. In the former class he places supernatural beings (including men with mana as well as ghosts and spirits), blood, new-born children with their mothers, and corpses; which list might be considerably extended, for instance, by the inclusion of natural portents, and animals and plants such as are strikingly odd, dangerous or useful. Any one of these can pass on its sacred quality to other persons and objects (as a corpse defiles the mourner and his clothes), nay to actions, places and times as well (as a corpse will likewise cause work to be tabooed, ground to be set apart, a holy season to be observed). Such transmissibility is commonly explained by the association of ideas, that becoming sacred which as it were re minds one of the sacred; though it is important to add, firstly, that such association takes place under the influence of a selective interest generated by strong religious feeling, and, secondly, that this interest is primarily a collective product, being governed by a social tradition which causes certain possibilities of ideal com bination alone to be realized, whilst it is the chief guarantee of the objectivity of what they suggest.