Sacharuna Library

2.1 Every religious conception of the universe implies a distinction between the sacred and the profane and is opposed to the world in which the believer freely attends to his business and engages in activity heedless of his salvation. The domain of the sacred is one in which he is paralyzed in turn by fear and by hopeÐa world in which, as at the edge of an abyss, the least misstep...can doom him irrevocably...For a long time now, by logical inference or direct verification it has been observed that religious man is, above all, one for whom two complementary universes existÐone, in which he can act without anxiety and trepidation, but in which his actions only involve his superficial self; the other in which a feeling of deep dependency controls, contains, and directs each of his drives, and to which he is committed unreservedly. These two worlds, the sacred and the profane, are rigurously defined only in relation to each other. They are mutually exclusive and contradictory. It is useless to try eliminating this contradiction. This opposition appears to be a genuinly intuitive concept...It is no more within the power of ABSTRACT LANGUAGE TO DEFINE ITS UNIQUE QUALITY THAN TO DEFINE A SENSATION. THUS THE SACRED SEEMS LIKE A CATEGORY of feeling...A feeling of special reverence imbues the believer, which fortifies his faith against critical inquiry, makes it immune to discussion, and places it outside and beyond reason. PP19-20.

2.2 The sacred is related as a common property, solid or ephemeral to certain objects,...beings,....palces,...times. There is nothing that cannot become its resting place...it is not something that can be taken away. It is a quality that things do not possess in themselvesÐa myserious aura that has been added onto things. ...a Dakota Indian explained...ÓThus it is with divinity; the sun is one place where it has lodged, trees and animals are others. That is why we pray to them, for we reach the place where the sacred has stopped, and receive its succor and blessing.Ó PP20-21

2.3 Nevertheless it is transformed in moving from person to person. From this moment on, the manner of its movement undergoes a parallel modification. It is no longer possible to partake of it freely. It stimulates feelings of terror and veneration; it becomes tabboo.Ó Contact with it becomes dangerous...The sacred is always more or less Òwhat one cannot approach without dying.ÓPP21

2.4 As for the profane, one must ...guard against a familiarity as deadly in its speed and its effects as the contagion of the sacred is crushing. The force that man or the holy contains is always ready to escape,,,It is no less necessary to protect the sacred from any taint of the profane. The profane, in effect, alters its essence, causes it to lose its unique qualityÐthe void created by the impression of the formidable and fleeting power it contains. That is why we are careful to remove from a sacred place all that pertains to a profane world. Only the priest enters the holy of holies...The presence of a profane being serves to remove the divine blessing. A woman who walks into a sacred place destroys its sanctity [???]. PP21

2.5 ÒThe two categoriesÓ writes Durkheim, Òcannot be brought together without thereby losing their unique characteristics.Ó On the other hand they are both necessary for the evolution of lifeÐone, as the environment within which life unfolds; the other, as the inexhaustible source that creates, sustains and renews it. PP22

2.6 It is from the sacred...that the believer expects all succor and success. The reverence in which he holds the sacred is composed equally of terror and confidence. The calamities that menace and victimize him, the prosperity that he desires or gains, is attributed by him to some principle that he strives to control or constrain. It is of little importance what he imagines the supreme origin of grace or his ordeals to be...As complex or simple as one can imagine, religion implies the recognition of this force with which man must reckon. All that appears to him to contain it appears sacred, terrible and precious...One can have only disdain for the profane, while the sacred inspires a kind of fascination. At the same time, it constitutes the supreme temptation and the greatest of dangers. Dreadful, it commands caution, and desirable, it invites rashness. PP22

2.7 Thus in its basic form the sacred represents a dangerous force, incomprehensible, intractable but eminently efficacios. For the one who decides to have recourse to it, the problem consists of capturing and utilizing it in his best interest, while at the same time protecting himself against the risks inherent in using a force so difficult to control.PP23

2.8 The sacred cannot be subdued, diluted, or divided. It is indivisible and always a totality wherever it is found. ..The profane person must be careful in his desire to appropriate this power and must take proper precautions...An unprepared individual cannot bear such a transformation of energy...PP23

2.9 On the one hand, the contagiusness of the sacred causes it to spread instantaneously to the profane, and thus to risk destroying and dissipating itself uselessly. On the other hand, the profane always needs the sacred, is always pressed to possess it avidly, and thus to risk degrading the sacred or being annihilated by it. Their reciprical relationships therefore, have to be strictly regulated. This is precisely the function of ritual. First, the positive function...is to transform the nature of the profane or thesacred according to the needs of the society. Second, the negative function is, on teh contrary, to keep the profane and the sacred as they are, lest they destroy each other by coming into improper contact. PP23

2.10 The former comprise consecration rites, which initiate people and things into the world of the sacred, and deconsecration or expiation rites, which, conversely, make persons or things pure or impure in the profane world. These rites establish the ins and outs indispensable to the two worlds. Prohibitions, on the contrary, raise an equally indispensable barrier between the sacred and the profane, which eparets them but saves them from catastrophe. These prohibitions are ordinarily designated by the polynesian term taboo . ÒWe use this word,Ó writes Durkheim, Òfor a category of ritualistic interdictions which have the effect of preventing the dangerous results of magical contagion, by avoiding any contact with an object or class of objects in which a supernatural principle is supposed to reside, and of others which do not have this property, or not to the same degree.ÓPP24

2.11 The taboo is like a categorical imperative. It always involves forbidding, never sanctioning. It is not justified by any moral consideration. One must not infringe upon it, for the sole and unique reason that it is the law, and it absolutely defines what is and is not permitted. It is destined to maintain the integration of organized society and, at the same time, the health and morale of the individual who complies. it keps one man from dying and another from reverting from the chaotic and fluid stage, formless and vague, of which he was part before divine beings or ancestral heroes arrived to bring him order, dimensions, stability and regularity. In the primordial state of license, taboos did not exist. His ancestors, in instituting them, established the proper order and functioning of the universe. They determined once and for all, the relationships between men and things, between men and their Gods...In Polynesian, the opposite of taboo is ÔfreeÕ noa. Noa is that which is allowable, without questioning the order of the universe, without unleashing misfortune and calamity, and that which entails no inordinate nor irremediable consequences. On the other hand, an act is taboo that cannot be performed without attacking the universal order of both nature and society. Each transgression upsets the entire order. PP24

2.12 The individual canot approach it [the sacred] without unleashing forces of which he is not the master and against which his weakness makes him helpless. However, without his assistance, his desires are doomed to frustration. In these forces resides the source of all success, power and luck. Butwhen invoking them one dreads becoming their first victim. PP25

2.13 ÒWhoever follows rta [Indo-Iranianmoral prescriptions] finds the path easy and free of brambles,Ó but conversely, he who deviates from the beaten path, from the primordial standard, brings to pass incalculable and far reaching evils. PP26

2.14 The natural order is a continuation of the social order and reflets it. Both are conected. What troubles one disturbs the other. A crime of öLŽse majestŽ is like an at against nature, equally injurious to the proper functioning of the universe. PP26. In the same way, to mix the two is adangerous operation which may result in confusion and disroder, which particularly risks confounding the properties that should be kept separate if their special virtues are to be preserved. PP26

2.15 All natural oppositions, as those of the sexes or the seasons, can give birth to rules capable of maintaining the integrity of the principles that otherwise would be contradicted. PP27

2.16 ...the intermixture is not considered by their religion [australian aborigine] as a kind of chemical operation with definite and, in any case, purely material consequences. It involves the very essence of the matter. It is disturbed and altered, an impurity is introduced, in other words, a contagious focus of infection, that must be destroyed, eliminated or isolated without delay. PP27

2.17 The properties of objects are contagious. They change, reverse, combine and corrupt each other if too great a proximity permits them to interact. The order of the universe is offended to that degree.PP27

2.18 In another respect the individual desires to succeed in his enterprises, or to acquire those virtues that will enable him to succeed, and preevnt the misfortunes lying in wait for him or the punishment that he deserves for his shortcomings...the supplicant can imagine nothing better, in order to control the Gods and have them yield to him, than to take the initiative by making them a gift or a sacrifice, that is by consecrating, by presenting at his expense to the domain of the sacred, something that belongs to him and that he gives up, something of which he has free disposition and to which he renounces every right. The sacred powers that cannot refuse this usurious gift become the debtors of the donor, are bound by what they have received, and to be left in peace, have to grant what he is asking of them...the order of the universe is thus re-established. Through sacrifice the believer becomes a creditor; he expects the powers that he venerates to pay off the debts that they have contracted on his account by granting his desires. Having done this, they furnish the response that all unilateral acts require and restore the balance that the supplicantÕs selfish generosity has disturbed, to his profit. PP28

2.19 asceticism and offerings...every act by which one voluntarily deprives oneself of a pleasure or an advantage...it is known that asceticism is indeed the road to power...Each renunciation redounds to his credit in the mythical world and assures him an equal latitude in supernatural possibilities. He acquires by the impossible and the forbidden, a beyond reserved for him alone and orresponding exactly to the here and now of the possible and the permitted that he had abandoned. But this exchange constitutes the most profitable of investments for what he disdained in the profane he recovers in the sacred. The ascetic, who augments his powers by the degree that he diminishes his pleasures, transcends mankind, approaches the Gods, and rapidly becomes their peer...The Gods dread having to pay dearly for so many mortifiations, and soon have to lead him to all manner of temptations in order to deprive him of a power capable of upsetting theirs. This theme recurs ...in mythology.PP29

2.20 Similarly we torment ourselves in order to pay in advance for the happinness we are seeking from the Gods....Thus, through appropriate suffering he [man] always raises the price of the advantage that he is seeking. Equally, he is saved from an evil which he dreads, while practicing self-denial with good grace. PP29

2.21 The consecration of the first-fruits seems to be based on the same psychology. This time, the part is sacrificed not to save but to acquire the whole. In fact, each beginning poses a problem. An equilibrium is brokenÐa new element had been added that must be introduced into the order of the universe with least disturbance. That is why the first in a series is regarded as dangerous. One dare not put it to common use. It belongs by right to the divine...The Ancient Hebrews did not reap for themselves the fruits of the trees they had planted until the fifth year. The fruit of the first three years was deemed impure and the fourth was dedicated to God. In the same way they sacrificed the first born of domestic animals.Even man was not exempted from this rule. He often had to offer up his first son, as Abraham did Isaac, or at least dedicate him to the divine cult. The first-born represents the GodÕs share. PP30

2.22 To take possession of newly constructed edifice involves analogous risks...We know the often told story, according to which the devil helps build a church on condition that he take possession of the soul of the first one who enters there. Examples of this...demonstrate the absolute danger attached to every beginning and the necessity of partial consecration that can integrate into the order of things the element that has been introduced. PP31

2.23 The healing of each wound leaves a scar. The restoration of the disturbed order does not give back its primitive stability or its original purity. Life persists, thanks to itsdynamic quality, only by continuous regeneration, which is tiring for the organism and which forces it to a ceaselless assimilation of new matter. Such are rites of atonement, the solemn elimination of impurities, various cleansing and purging practices restoring the order of the universe, which is under attack. These can never restore the virtue of innocence, but rather a prudent state of health never again triumphant and free from care as it was prior to the illness. PP31-32

2.24 To protect nature and society from the inevitable aging process that would lead it to ruin, it is important to take the precaution of periodically rejuvenating and regenerating it. This obligation opens a new chapter in the study of the sacred. It will no longer suffice to describe the functioning of the order of the world, to note that the powers of the sacred are kept for good or for evil, aiding respectively to the cohesion or presipitating the dissolution of the universal order. It will be necessary, in addition. to indicate the way in which man labors to maintain this order, and the efforts he exerts to renew it when he sees it crumbling or near collapse...Without a doubt, to the degree that each person is a member of a society, the fact of the sacred gains its true significance to the same degree...it is not only the individualÕs mind that is fascinated by the sacred, but all of his being. PP32

2.25 without analyzing in detail the feelings that it stimulates, which would entail undertaking a kind of psychology of the sacred, it is appropriate that we begin by describing how it appears to the simple consciousness and the qualities it assumes for the one who experiences it. next, we will examine the social mechanism upon which the reality of the sacred is based and the social functions over which it presides. PP32

3.1 ...the categories of pure and impure do not originally connote an ethical antagonism, but rather a religious polarity. They play the same role in the world of the sacred as the concepts of good and evil play in the world of the profane For the world of the sacred , among other caracteristics, is opposed to the world of the profane as a world of energy is opposed to a world of substance. On one side forces, on the other, things. The immdediate result of this is of importance to the concepts of pure and impure. They become eminently mobile, interchangeable, and equivocal. In effect, if a thing, by definition, possess a fixed nature, a force , on the contrary implies good or evil according to the particular circumstances of its respective manifestations. It is good or bad not by nature but by the direction it takes or is given. We must not expect to see the qualities of the pure and impure affecting, in an invariant or exclusive way, any being, object, or status in which any religious effect is recognized. The one or the other is in turn attributed to them, to the extent that this effect takes place beneficiently or malevolently, and simultaneously....Every latent force simultaneously provokes desire and fear and stimulates in the believer the fear that it is the means of his undoing and the hope that it is the vehicle of his salvation. Each time that it is manifested, it is in a sense either a source of benediction or an avenue of malediction. In theory it is equivocal, in actuality, it becomes univocal. From this point on no hesitation is permitted. When impurity is encountered, which attacks the foundation of oneÕs being, it is viewed as illness and symptom of death. The words that mean purity in ÔprimitiveÕ languages can be translated as cure or disenchant. Or again, purity is recognized as akin to health, to exuberant vitality, to excessive, irresistible forceÐdangerous because of its vary intensity. PP35

3.2 It happens that defilement and sacntity , when duly identified, likewise entail caution and represent, as against the world of common usage, two poles of a dredful domain...The Greeek word ÒdefilementÓalso means, Òthe sacrifice which cleanses the defilementÓ The term Òholy,Ó also means ÒdefiledÓ...The latin expiare, Òto expiateÓ [is] interpreted etymologically as Òto rid (oneself) of the sacred element that has been introduced by the defilement.ÓExpiation is the act that permits the criminal to resume his normal activity and his place in the profane community, by ridding himslef of his sacred character, by deconsecrating himself. PP35

3.3 The more primitive civilizations did not separate linguistically the taboo caused by awe of sanctity from that inspired by fear of defilementThe same term evokes the supernatural powers from which one ought to stay far removed, whatever the motive...The ancient Japanese...used the term kami for both heavenly and earthly divinities and for Òall malevolent and terrible creatures, objects of universal dread.Ó Everything that possesses an efficacious property (isao) is kami. PP36

3.4 ...this quality (mana)...stimulates the ambivalent feelings...described. One fears it and yet would like to avail oneself of it. It both repels and fascinates. It is taboo and dangerous. It suffices that one desires to approach and possess it at the very moment in which one is keeping a proper distance from it.. PP36

3.5 Basically, the sacred stimulates in the believer exactly the same feelings as the fire does in the childÐthe same fear of being burnt, and the same desire to light it; the same anxiety in the face of the forbidden, the same faith that its conquest will afford him power and prestige, or injury and death in the event of failure. And just as the fire produces both evil and good, the sacred invloves right or wrong action and is imbued with the opposing qualities of pure and impure, holy and sacrilegous, that define within their own limits the very frontiers to which the religious order can be extended. PP37

3.6 One can thus, perhaps, grasp the essential mechanism involved in the sacred dialectic. Every force animating it tends to become dissociated. Its foremost ambiguity tends to rsolve itself into antagonistic and complimentary elements to which can be tendered, respectively, feelings of AWE AND AVERSIONÐfeelings of desire and fervor that are inspired by its completely equivocal nature. But no sooner are these poles born of the extension of the sacred than they provoke, on their own partÐto the precise degree that they possess sacred characterÐthe same ambivalent reactions that had originally isolated them from each other. PP37

3.7 The subdivisions of the sacred produces good and evil spirits, priests and sorcerers...God and the devil. However, the attitudes of the believers toward each of these ramifications of the sacred reveal the very same ambivalence as their behavior with regard to the undivided manifestations of the sacred. PP37

3.8 Confronted with the divine St Agustine is chilled with horror and transported with love...The fascinans corresponds to the intoxicating qualities of the sacred, to the Dyonisian giddiness, the ecstasy, the unity of transport....also, more simply, the love of the divinity for what He has created that draws them irresistibly. On the other hand the tremendum represents the divine wrath, the inexorable justice of the jealous God before whom the humbled sinner trembles and begs pardon. PP37-38

3.9 Analagously, the demonic, at the opposite pole of the sacred and sharing its terrible and dangerous characteristics, excites in its turn equally irrational sentiments that are opposed to oneÕs self-interest. The devil, for example, is not only the one who cruelly torments the damned...but also one whose tempting voice offers the pleasure of earthly satisfactions to the anchorite...It is no less remarkable that the tormentor appears simultaneously as the seducer, and if need be, as the comforter. PP38

3.10 If the analysis of religion is oriented with reference to its extreme and opposing limits, representing in diverse forms salvation and damnation, its essential function seems simultaneously determined by a dual motive, the acquisition of purity and the elimination of defilement. PP38

3.11 Purity is acquired by submitting to a set of ritualistic observances. The point above all...is to become separated from the profane world in order to make possible the penetration of the sacred world without peril. The human must be abandoned before the divine can be reached. ..rites of catharsis are to the highest degree negations or abstentions. They consist of temporary renunciations of the varied activities typical of the profane world, normal and necessary though they be to the preservation of life...it is precisely to the dergee that they seem normal and necessary that abstention is required. It is literally necessary to be purified in order to be worthy of approaching the domain of the Gods. It is always the intermixture that is feared. So in order to savour divine life, all that is part of ordinary process of hhuman living must be rejectedÐspeech, sleep, the company of others, nourishment, sexual relations...A genuanine and voluntary transformation is required of the individual. PP39

3.12 Thus concecrated and detached from the profane, he must stay removed from it so that his state of purity or consecration may last. Besides, this state cannot be maintained for very long. If life is to be preserved, he must recover the use of everything pertaining to it and incompatible with sanctity. On leaving the temple, the Ancient Hebrew priest takes off his sacred vestments Òin order that his consecration should not spreadÓ. PP40

3.13 The use of property and participation in group life constitute and, in effect, define profane existence. The pure is excluded from it in order that the Gods may be approached, and the impure is banished lest its defilement be communicated to its surroundings. PP40

3.14 The various impurities [mourning, menses, incest] expose the entire community to danger, for nothing is more contagious than supernatural defilement. Thus, each society has as its first duty protection from defilement by rigidly excluding from its midst the bearers of germs. PP41

3.15 It is remarkable that the same taboos that are a barrier to defilement also isolate one from contact with sanctity. The Emperor-God of the Mikado type, like the indisposed female, may not touch the ground or expose himself to the rays of the sun...It is necessary...to shelter the divine king from all defilement, from any dissipation of his holy power, from any occassion for exerting it brutally. The proper functioning of nature and the state must be assured through diffussing this power slowly and carefully. PP41

3.16 The divine and the accursed have exactly the same effects upon profane objects. They render them untouchable, withdraw them from circulation, and communicate to them their formidable qualities. So one ought not be surprised that the same barriers are a protection against excess of honor as of excess of indignity, which would likewise deprive them, ordinarily, of the resources necessary to group survival and the powers indispensable for daily labor. PP42

3.17 The Polarity of the Sacred. In addition, the pure and the impure must not ne affected by characteristics contrary to their nature. The one attracts, the other repels. One is noble, the other ignoble. One provokes awe, love and gratitude; the other distatste, horror and terror...all positive powers are united and bound together, Òthose which preserve and lengthen life, which are conducive to health, social pre-eminence, bravery in war and excellence at work,Ó according to R. HertzÕs definition. These powers are exercised in harmony with nature, or rather comprise this harmony, and determine the ryth of the universe. Thus, they seem marked by a Òregulatory and august character that inspires veneration and confidence.Ó At the other extreme are gathered the powers of death, destruction, the sources of illness, disorder, epidemics, crimes, everything that enfeebles, diminishes, corrupts and decays. PP43

3.18 Everything in the universe is susceptible to dichotomization and can thus symbolize the varied, interrelated, and antagonistic manifestations of the pure and the impure. Lining energies and the powersof death are joined to form the positive and negative poles of the religious world. PP43

3.19 R. Hertz, who set up this dichotomy, made aprofound study of it, in terms of right and left....Language itself manifests this opposition. In the Indo-European family, a special root expresses the concept of right in various languages. The left side, on the contrary, is designated by multiform and ambiguous terms, by devious expressions in which metaphor and anitphrasis play a large part. PP44

3.20 The word droite is also the word adroite , that which leads the right arm to its goal. Thus attesting not only to the adroitnes but to the good right arm of the warrior, his uprightness, it is proof that the Gods protect him. In China, the grand test of nobility is shooting with the longbow. It is not a test of competence o bravery, notes Granet, but Òa musical ceremony structured like a ballet.Ó The arrow must be let fly on the proper note; the movements of the archers must toucher au coeur; the ritualized rules and a correct attitude of mind joined to the right attitutde of body permits them to hit the center of the target. ÒThis is virtue realized,Ó concludes Li-KÕuei...meaning of the word right: everything that physically or metAPHYSIALLY DIRECTS THE RIGHT POWER TO ITS GOAL. Conversely, gaucherie is a sign of evil intent and an augury of failure. It is at once maladroitness, at once cause and effect of every tortous, crooked, or oblique power, of every false calculation or maneuver. It is everything uncertain and everything that falls short of its goal...all that is imperfect, exposes and involves a tendency toward wrong-doing. Right and adroit manifest purity and divine favour, left and maladroit exemplify defilement and sin. PP45

3.21 The reversibility of Pure and Impure Regarded as similar from a certain point of view by the profane world to which they are equally opposed, each in its own sphere etremely hostile to the other, the pure and the impure share a power that it is permissible to utilize. The more intense the force, the more promising the efficaciousness. From this derives the temptation to change defilement into benediction, to make the impure an instrument of purification. For this purpose, recourse is had to the mediation of the priest[shaman?] , the man whose sanctity renders him capable of approach without the fear of impurity...He possesses the power and knows the means of turning the malign power of infection toward good, of transforming a threat of death into an assurance of life. PP45

3.22 When mourning is ended, purificatory ceremonies not only free the parents of the deceased from his defilement, they also mark the moment at which the dead person, bearer of evil and fearful power, and all the characteristics of the left-sided sacred, becomes a tutelary spirit, beseeched with awe and reverence.PP45

3.23 Menstrual blood from childbirth is used as a remedy for other impuritiesÐboils, itching, skin diseases, and leprosy. The more impure it is, the more potent it is considered. Thus the blood from a young girlÕs first menstruation or from a womanÕs first childbirth is preferred.PP46

3.24 Even today the idea is more or less consciously dominant that the more repugnant and dangerous the remedy, the more efficacious it is. Also, one systematically seeks ingredients in compounding panaceas that are the most repulsive physically, and the most impure religiously. The Arabs use against Djinns and the evil eye a mixture out of excrement, menstrual blood, and the bones of the dead. PP46

3.25 Not only objects but beings harbor the ambiguous power of the sacred. The protective spirits painted on the hat of the siberian shaman are coloured half red and half black, in order to show the two ways in which their power is exercised... [A] warrior having slain an enemy in a raid, if he is to be honored, is not reintegrated into the community before being cleansed of the blood that he has spilled, of the contamination contracted through murder and touching a corpse.PP47

3.26 Conversely, the impurity acquires a mysterious power, or, what amounts to the same thing, manifests or is proof of it for the person heroically exposed to the perils of sacrilege...Among the Ba-Ila, nothing is more monstruous or dreadful than incest, yet one wishing to succeed in his enterprise commits incest with his sister, for Òthis imbues his talisman with great power.Ó...By violating the most sacred taboos, man acquires the perilious co-operation of supernatural forces,almost like signing a pact with the devil in order to become a sorcerer. Through incest, the daring one is immediatly transformed into a sorcerer, but only for a limited time, for the accomplishment of a particular deed. he must ritually brave the hazards of sacrilege in order to place himself beyond the reach of profane dangers. PP48

3.27 It is literally sufficient for a conversion obtained through appropriate penance, for a change of meaning facilitated by apropriate practices or attitudes, for the sinister power of which the transgressor of the sacred rules has given proof, that it remain intact and in its opposing form when it is a question of maintaining and respecting these rules...If in Christian hagiography the greatest sinners make the greatest saints, it is not merely in order to edify the faithful with the omnipotence of divine grace, but also by its illustration, always possible in the sacred order, of the exceptional powers manifested by the enormity of their sins. PP48

3.28 The Elimination of Inexpiable Defilement The difilement seems inexpiable...[when]no purificatory rite can rid the offender of the powerful element with which he was imbued when he committed the forbidden act. There is no way of ÒliberatingÓ him, of enabling him to re-enter the profane order. Therefore the only thing left is to extirpate radically this principle and this base of dangerous contagion. Thus, it is declared sacred (sacer). The group does not readily agree to put him to death for execution presumes contact...As a result the criminal is exiled...The task of destroying his left to foreigners, beasts or the elements. PP48-49.

3.29 When the state takes charge of making the plague-bearer dissappear, or in effect delegates a man or office for this function, they too become subject to the same opprobrium and must remain appart from the community, as if they had assumed the total burden of the defilement from which they deliver the community. The magistrates who are responsible take the strictest precautions lest, at the time of execution, the fearful contagion spread to the group. PP49

3.30 Cohesion and Dissolution Social Distribution of the Pure and the Impure. We can now map a kind of social geography of the pure and the impure...[their] very ambiguity presupposes a more stable distribution, a polarity better guaranteeing good or evil. Each of these opposing principles seems in effect to enjoy a fixed habitat. On the one side, the majestic and ordered world of the king, the priest, and the law from which one must fearfully keep oneÕs distance; on the other side, the sinister domain of the pariah, the sorcerer, and the criminal from which one must, in horror, stay away. Those who by nature, purify, cure, pardon, and protect through their sanctity are opposed to those who, in essence, defile, debase and misleadÐbeing dealers in sin and death. PP51

3.31 ...No contact is permitted between them. Beings imbued with sancity, like Polynesian chiefs, objects that seem to be ...reservoirs of sanctity, like Australian churingas, are isolated by the strictest taboos from any possible source of infection. PP51

3.32 Localization of the Pure and the Impure So rigid a separation of the pure and the impure principles implies their distinct localization at the social center. In fact the center would seem to be the clear and comforting abode of the pure, and the periphery the dark and disquieting abode of the impure...the forces that animate the life of the village and exalt its glory are thus supproted by its center, and in passing through the square, imbue it with beneficial strength. They move centrifugally, radiating out idyllic space replete with sanctity in which the Gods dwell, toward which ascends the smoke of the sacrificial fires, from which eventually come the rulerÕs edicts. Little by little their influence is replaced by that of the malevolent and mysterious presences of the bush, whose converging pressure is in danger of engulfing evrything. PP52

3.33 These locations are far from coincidental. They are encountered at all levels of civilization. R. Hertz has rightly observed that the dichotomy of right and left is analogous to that of inside and outside. The community views itself as enclosed, as in an imaginary pregnancy. Inside the circle, all is light, legality, and harmony; space is marked off, ruled, and distributed. At the center, the ark of the covenant or the altar represents the material and active base for the sanctity that diffuses outward to the circumference. fromthere, extends the outer darkness, the world of ambushes and traps, which knows neither authority nor law, and from which emanates a constant dread of defilement, illness and damnation. In circling the sacred fire, the believers so place themselves as to turn their right shoulders toward the center from which good luck originates, and their left sides, the defensive and inferior parts of their bodies (left arms carrying shields), are turned toward the somber, hostile and anarchic outside. This circling encloses the beneficient powers on the inside. At the same time it forms a barrier against dreaded attacks from the outside. PP53

3.34 ...the opposition of pure and impure, in passing from the religious to the secular domain and becoming an opposition of law and crime, of life of honor against dissolute existence, has retained the ancient topography of supernatural principlesÐgood at the center and evil at the periphery. PP54

3.35 Cohesion and Dissolution In a general way, the sacred powers inhabit a fixed locale. The empire of defilement, on the contrary, is diffused and indeterminate. We have been able to see, especially in Australia, a fundamental opposition between religion and magic. In fact, the evil spirits from which Australian sorcerers derive their power are not bound to any totemic center. LIKE THE MAGICIANS THEMSELVES , THEy exist outside the social group. The impure force that they exert...does not belong to a recognized clan, is not in a public place, does not direct the formation of any sistem of morals, as the church or the established religion directs the body politic. On the contrary, it does not tAKE INTO ACCOUNT LOCAL PECULIARITIES. INDEED IT FAVORS THOSE (WOMEN AND SLAVES) WHO ARE EXCLUDED FROM THE REGULAR CULTS.PP54

3.36 One can say that it is the very emanation of the brush, formidably and continually an enemy, engulfing in its homogeneity as the sea inundates islets and the various human groups that have successfullly established their habitations upon it. It is in the brush, far from the village, that the sorcerer is initiated. he comes back with a personal tutelary spirit that is in opposition to the clan, worshipping its collective totem. The clan allows members of other groups to consume the totemic animal to which it is bound. Indeed the economic organization of the tribe seems to be based on reciprocal dietary taboos. But the magician to whom an animal is revealed is allied in the course of a dream, hallucination, or trance, or to whom a related sorcere has bequeathed the title of protective spirit, is protected and revered by other members of the community. he is viewed by the clan as a foreign element, besides wirlding a mysterious and dreaded power. he is no longer regarded by others as a ÔbrotherÕ. In fact he hsa become another being. The spirits that have initiated him have changed his vital organs and have injected into his body pieces of rock crystal in which reside the powers that cause him to be feared. people flee from him, and he leads a solitary and haunted existence. He becomes virtually outcast from the community, and in contrast to the cohesion of the community, he incarnates, through the principles of death, the very forces of dissolution. PP55

3.37 The words cohesion and dissolution permit us to define adequately the respective unity of the complex wholes to which the pure and the impure belong. The powers defining the former are those that affirm, solidify, and strengthen, that make one vigorous, sound, stable, and predictable. In the universe they preside over cosmic harmony. In society, they make for material prosperity and good administration, in man, they buttress the integrity of his physical being. They are everything that founds, maintains, or perfects norms, order, and health. It is understood that they are incarnate in the ruler. The powers defining the latter are responsible for dissipTION, disorder, and fever. To them is imputed every irregularity in the course of events. They are the cause of eclipses, marvels, monsters. the birth of twins, and in general, manifestations of ill omen that result from their encounter with natural laws and that necessitate expiation...PP55

3.38 To them are equally attributed transgressions against the political or religious order. In fact, we have observed that treason, sacrilege, and regicide are regarded as inexpiably impure. PP55

3.39 This is because they strike at social cohesion, plece it in jeopardy and tend to destroy it. PP56

3.40 The protesting vassal no loger has a country. he is a man from nowhere who has no place in any kingdom. Such is the terrible fate resreved fo the ma who behaves individualistically in the community to which he belongs and to which his attittude and contagious example is a catalytic agent of dissolution. PP56

3.41 Purity and Impurity:ÓAutonomoues StatesÓ It seems that the concepts of impure and impure originally had not been separated from the many sentiments that in their different maniestations stimulate the complementary and antithetical forces, whose concordia discors structures the universe...Purity is therefore, simultaneously health, vigor, bravery, luck, longevity, dexterity, wealth, good fortune, and sanctity. Impurity comprises illness, weakness, cowardice, gausherie, infirmity, bad luck, misery, misfortune, and damnation. It is no longer possible to perceive moral aspirations. Physical defect and frustration are equally blamed with perverse desires and regarded as symptoms or results. Reciprocally, adroitness or success manifest divine favor and seem to be an assurance of virtue. PP57

3.42 In Babylon, we observe that states of grace or of sin are still described as autonomous. The crimibal is prey of demoniacal powers: ÒMalediction rises from the sea, grace descends from the skies....Where (falls) the wrath of the Gods, (demons) rush about shrieking. They grasp the man whose God has abandoned him and envelop him like a robe. They come right at him, fill him with poison...Ó. PP58

3.43 More and more, purity, properly speaking, is identified with physical and moral cleanliness, and essentially with chastity. Purity represents the point of departure from which the ideo of defilement may in some way be removed. From the miasma that the current carries off, it has become the stain of which the soul is purified by divine forgiveness.PP59

3.44 Profane and Sacred [The notion of the sacred] continues opposing Òthe way, the truth, and lifeÓ to the powers that corrupt existence in every sense of the word, that make it despair and consign it to damnation. However, at the same time it displays, in whatever supports it, the essential connivance of the exalting and the ruinous. The profane is the world of ease and security. It is bounded by two abysses. Two stumbling blocks attract man when ease and security no longer satisfy him, when he is weighed down through safe and prudent submission to rules. He then understands that the latter is only there as a barrier, that this is not what is sacred, but rather what is unattainable, and will only be known and understood by one who has passed or broken it. The barrier once surmounted, no return is possible. One must talk continuously on the road to sanctity or the road to damnation, which abruptly join at unforseen crossroads. He who dares to set the subterranean powers in motion is one who is not content with his lot, or sometimes one who has been unable to sway the heavens. He is determined to force entry. The pact with the devil is no less consecrating that divine grace. The one who has signed it and the one burdened by it are equally separated forever from the common lotand, by the prestige of their destiny, trouble the dreams of the timid and the jaded, who have not attempted to plumb the depths. PP59

4.1 The two poles of the sacred are generally opposed to the profane world. When faced with it, their antagonism shrinks and tends to disappear. Sanctity fears alike both defilement and the profane, which represent different degrees of impurity. Inversely, defilement is no less capable of contaminating sanctity than the profane, which can be equally attacked. Thus, the three elements of the religious universeÐthe pure, the profane, and the impureÐmanifest a remarkable aptitude for any two to ally themselves against the third. PP60

4.2 The basic ambiguity of the sacred being admitted, it must now be noted how it is altogether opposed to the world of the profane. That is to say, we must now investigate what in society corresponds to the distinction between the two complementary and antithetical domains of the sacred and the profane. We soon perceive that it overlaps or embraces other divisions or dichotomiesÐthat of equally complementary and antithetical groups or principles whose oppositions and agreement (the concordia discors) enable the group to function). So signifies, for example, the pairing of moieties insocieties in which power is diffused, or the pairing of ruler and subjects in societies where power is concentrated...this division governs the allocation of the profane and the sacred. What is free for the members of one moiety is forbidden to the members of the other. What is permitted to the ruler is forbidden to his subjects and viceversa. The function of taboos is to protect the established order from all sacrilegeous attack. They cannot be considered separatly. They form a system from which no element can be removed and which can only be explained by a total functional analysis of the society in which they are enforced. PP61

4.3 The Structure of the Universe Bifurcation of Society. ...the totems of the moieties are not haphazard. They are symmetrical and antithetical...PP62

4.4 Bifurcation of the Universe This symmetry and opposition are preserved in the division of the elements of the universe between the social structures...beings or objects are classed in the same division because of the mutual affinities that the manifest...Among the Aranda, frogs are associated with the eucalyptus because they are found in its hollow. Conversely, it seems certain that objects that are opposed, and paired in their opposition, are distributed among groups that are socially opposed and paired. That is, for example, the case generally with the sun and the moon. PP63

4.5 Complementary Qualities Moieties form a system. They possess and represent complementary properties that coincide and are opposed. Each assumes well defined functions, shares aprecise principle, and is permanently associated with a particular direction in space, with a season of the year, with a basic element of nature. These are always anatagonistic. The personality of each moiety is indicated by its totem. PP66

4.6 The tribe, like the entire universe is the product of the two moieties. It should be understoos that the tribe never possesses the totem. It does not appear to be a substantive unit but the result of a fecund rivalry of its two active poles. The myths relating to the tribeÕs origin do not emphasize its unity but rather its duality. PP66

4.7 In the visible and the invisible, in the mythical and the real, the tribe does not appear to be a homogenous unity but rather a totality that only exists and functions through the constant and fertile opposition of symetrical units of objects and beings. These, in sum, embrace all nature and society without exception and thus, siultaneously, determine the structure of the ordo rerum and the ordo hominum.PP66

4.8 Sexual, Seasoal, AND SOCIAL SUBSTRATUM OF THE TOTEMIC QUALITIES. Durkheim and Mauss long ago observed that the notions of heaven and earth represent classificatory rubrics analogous to those they studied in totemistic societies. In effect HEAVEN AND EARTH CORRESPOND TO MALE AND FEMALE, LIGHT AND DARKNESS, RULER AND SUBJECTS, ETC. IN PARTICULAT THEY FOUND A LINK WITH SPACE, TIME, AND MYTHICAL CREATURES BECAUSE THE QUALITIES OF HEaven and earth are in harmony with the qualities of the Ying and Yang principles, which in China dominate all of social life and the universe. PP68

4.9 Also, the two basic principles of the universe and of society are embodied, on the one hand, in the sexes (concomitantly to assure biological fecundity); and, on the other, in the moieties (as factors in social harmony).PP70

4.10 It is proper to depict the totemic symbols of the moieties...and by divination, of the clans, as signs manifesting the mysterious qualities whose rivalry and collaboration preserve the universe and hold society together. PP72

4.11 The principle of Respect Beings or object in the same mystic class are supposed to have in common a kind of substantive identity. members of a clan share with their totem, and with everything classified under its rubric, a brotherhood that exerts pressure on other groups, to the degree that it does not coincide with them. PP72

4.12 ...each taboo corresponds to a complememntary obligation that explains it. Killing and eating the totemic animal is forbidden the members of the clan, but members of other clans kill and eat it, just as the former do the totemic animal of the latter. It is strictly forbidden to marry women of oneÕs own clan, it is because they are reserved for the men of the other clan, whose women are married to the men of the first clan. It is the same in everything, for that is the principle of respect, formulated by Swanton, and applied to the Tlingit and the Haida. Each moiety takes account of the other, wether on the ritualistic, alimentary, economic, juridical, matrimonial, or funeral levels. PP73

4.13 Hertz has already observed that everything belonging to one moiety is sacred and guarded for its members, profane and freee for the members of the other. The sacred is thus bound most strictly to the order of the universe. It is its immediate expression and most direct consequence. PP73

4.14 Dietary Vows Everything takes place as if all the resources at the disposal of the tribes are divided among the moieties and the mtrimonial classes...Each clan celebrates the ceremony called the Intichiuma, in order to assure the food supply of the others.PP74

4.15 It is important for the clan to regenerate the animal or vegetable species to which its existence is mystically bound and which is sacred to each of its members. Once this regeneration is obtained through appropriate rituals, there ensues a period during which the eating of the totemic species is strictly forbidden for the members of the clan concerned and restricted for the others. After that, they are free to hunt the animal or gather the plant. The products of this quest are assembled. Then, the chief of the totemic group tastes the food previously forbidden, and after him, all his clan aides will taste it. The rest is sent, on condition of retaliation, to the men of other clans, who can, from this moment on, dispose of it as they wish.PP75

4.16 Each moiety thus happens to be interested in seeing that the other executes the ceremony correctly and observes strictly the concurrent taboos, in order to assure the reproduction and multiplication of their food supply. PP75

4.17 Sexual vows The same principle of reciprosity applies to marriage. The necessity for exogamy is not merely the positive side of taboo against incest. It is not only important to marry outside the group, but also to marry into another predetermined group. ..Marcel Granet...defines the phenomenon most precisely by veryfying that husband and wife are as close tas they can be without reaching substantive identity. The latter is determined by the name, in addition, by belonging to the moiety, to the cosmic principle that it embodies and whose perpetuation it assures by its continuity. PP76

4.18 ÒIt is the seal of the hope for children to come,Ó writes Leenhardt, Òfor the daughters will return to get married in their motherÕs native village, and will take the lace that she actually occupied as a girl.Ó ...Father and son, in effect, live together, but belong to opposite groups. The life of a man does not continue in his son, but in the children of his sister, whom he has expatriated to the complementary group. There, where they were born, the boys remain, but the girls come back to their uncleÕs home to marry his sons, and give him grandchildren. In this way he regains his flesh and blood...Thus, the vital fluid, at the heart of each group, skips from grandfather to grandson, by passing through the nephew by blood of the former, who is the maternal uncle of the latter. Exogamy is nothing but this perpetual and obligatory exchange of females, which simultaneously sanctions the solidarity and opposition of two social groups, two sexes, and two successive generations. PP78

4.19 Incest is the business of rulers, since it is through incest, in conserving the females in his family, that he upsets the balance to his advantage, that he becomes pre-eminent. PP78

4.20 Sexual and dietary vows, and concerted ritual functions, are continuously interwoven with the solidarity of the groups that form the tribe on the human level, while their opposite qualities are invisibly combined to form the organic totality of the universe, simultaneously the material order and the order of mankind. PP79

4.21 Sacred Laws and Sacrilegous Acts Incest is a special violation of the ordo rerum . It consists of the impious and necessarily sterile union of two principles symbolizing the same things. From this viewpoint, a violation of the dietary taboo is exactly equivalent to it. In fact, just as in marriage, a specifically polar relationships is required between the food and the eater for their mutual advantage. The organism has no need of its own substance but of the one who eats it. That is why the individual respects his totem and eats the totem of the opposing group. To consume his own totem is not nourishing, but on the contrary, would cause him to languish and die of starvation, just as with a violation of exogamy, for to eat it is monstrous, since devouring the flesh of his totem, is the same as eating his own flesh.PP82

4.22 To eat the totem and to violate the law of exogamy are patallel offenses against the same law, which causes every group tomake a division between the sacred and the profane. In the minds of the natives, they evoke the same qualms and excite the same horror. They are often regarded as identical and are designated with the same name. In New Britain, a Gantuna old man explained to a missionary that the taboo against eating the totem connotes Òpurely and simplyÓ sexual relations between sthe men of the totemic group, for carnal relations are symbolized by the consumption of food.PP82

4.23 But what must be seen here is a strongly felt harmony, related to a particulattion of the universe, rather than a latent and unconscious identification of a general character...To eat totemic food or to marry a totemic woman are equivalent sins. In these situations a delinquent act is committed by depriving the other group of what belongs to it. It is physiologically harmful and sterile and doubly impious because it violates the order of things. The offender, to begin with, defiles the mystic principle that he shares and all its manifestations that he should respect. PP83

4.24 Food, women and victims must be sought outside the group. Inside the community everything is sacred and commands respect. PP84

4.25 Now it may be seen that Robertson SmithÕs definition of an Arabic clan (Òthe group in which there is no blood vengeanceÓ) is nothing else but the counterpart of the definition of the clan as the group in which marriage is forbidden. Marriage and vengeance only take place between clans or moieties. They form equally solid bonds and by the same token constitute blood relationships, one corresponding to the state of peace, the other to the state of war, but completely symmetrical. Murders are as strictly regarded as marital unions, for the supplying of spouses is equivalent to the avenging of the slain. Homicides and weddings are viewed as pledges that must be honored, and in the same manner cause an imbalance that can only end by the appropriate counterpart. There must be murder for murder, spouse for spouse. PP84-85

4.26 The tribeÐA Living Unity Reciprocal gifts of food, exchange of spouses, and payment of blood debts form an impeccable pattern attesting to the proper functioning of tribal life. Such would appear to be thetypical structure from which taboos, in societies with moieties, derive. Taboos define the sphere of the sacred in manÕs life and limit the extent of his free or profane activity. The moieties represent the equilibrium and solidarity of two principles whose division creates order, union and fertility. PP85-86

4.27 Hence, nothing can combat the category of the pair, whose influence is clearly evident in primitive thought. The native does not conceive a unity, for everything that is exists in his eyes as one of a pair...The isolated individual, springing from an elemmentary duality, is a lost and errant being. he does not form a unity, but an incomplete fragment of a living unity. PP86

4.28 The union of the sexes in marriage conveys an immediate and perfect image, a true AND COMPLETE LIKENESS OF THE CONCEPT OF THE COUPLE. FROM THIS MODEL CAN BE UNDERSTOOD ALL SOCIAL LIFE. EACH MOIETY BRINGS TO THE OTHER WHAT IT LACKS IN VARIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. MOREOUVER, THE PRINCIPLE INCARNATED IN EACH, AND WHICH IS EMBOSIED IN ITS MEMBERS, NOT ONLY MUST BE UNITED WITH THE OPPOSING PRINCIPLE BUT MUST BE STRENGTHENED AND INVIGORATED IN ITS ESSENCE. ON THE ONE HAND, IT IS NECESSARY TO SEEK ITS COMPLEMENTARY entity, to make all creation possible; on the other, to stay away from it, in order not to corrupt its own qualities. On the one hand it is necessary to respect whatever possesses the same quality as it does; on the other, to steep oneself in it, to feed upon it in order to reinforce this quality in oneslef. PP86

4.29 Hierachy and LŽse-MajestŽ As a consequence of the increasing complexity of society, it happens that the interplay of the moieties loses in importance by contrast to organization into specialized groups. In this case the dominance of the notion of the couple is lost, and with it, the feeling of reciprocity in which services rendered and received are in equilibrium. Evidence of solidarity in which each...gives as much as he takes, is no loger observed. The tendency that enables each group to keep its integrity alone persists. Then it is no longer important to maintain its vital quality intact in order to put it at the exclusive disposition of the other moiety of the social group, but to exalt it and try to assure its supremacy over the other principles whose joint action perpetuates the existence and welfare of the tribe. There is no longer any thought of preserving, together with the opposing group, a perfect equilibrium that each is most interested in maintaining. rather, each aspires to increase its prestige and become dominant. PP87

4.30 A principle of individuation is affirmed in place of the principle of respect. The symmetrical relationship between the moieties is succeeded by an unstable state of rivalry between the clans. PP87

4.31 It matters little that the will to cooperation has been completely eliminated by the will to power. Often, as Davy has shown, to be witness to respect is to become the means of imposing respect. To be most generous in the influential distribution of wealth and food ends by Ògiving to the service rendered the form of a defiance of the power to recognize it.ÓPP88

4.32 Under these conditions it would seem better to accept personal power as a new datum, without trying unduly to derive it from a prior state. PP89

4.33 The fact of PowerÐAn Immediate datum It is important to pause to consider the naked fact of power. Whatever may be the roads by which personal influence becomes fixed in recognized authority, it is appropriate to note the irreducible character, the intimate nature of power...It manifest an ananke stenai equally imperative. PP89

4.34 It is preferable to be content with noting the absolute uniqueness of the reality of power and stressing the strict continuum almost identifying its nature with that of the sacred. PP90

4.35 Independent of its origin and its point of application, in all its imaginable variations as it is exercised over things and men. power seems like the gratification of a desire. It manifests the omnipotence of speech, whether commandment or incantation. It causes orders to be executed. It is presented in an invisible, weighty, and irresistible quality that is manifested in the chief as the source and principle back of his authority. This quality, which compels obedience to his injunctions, is the same as that which gives wind the ability to blow, fire the ability to burn, and a weapon the ability to kill. It is designated, in various ways, by the melanesian word mana ...The man who possesses mana is the one who knows how to make others obey. PP90

4.36 Power, like the sacred, seems to be an external sign of grace, of which the individual is the temporary abode. It is obtained through investiture, initiation, or consecration. It is lost through degradation, indignity, or abuse. It benefits from the support of the entire society, which constitutes its depository. The king wears the crown, the sceptre...he has guards...He executes all types of coercion capable of forcing the rebellious to submit. But it must be pointed out that these means do not explain as much as they demonstrate the efficacy of power. To the degree to which people regard them as powerful, or consider them able to subjugate, or reveal reasons for being afraid, it is unnecessary to explain the motives for complaisance and docility. PP90

4.37 Whatever the kind of powerÐcivil, military, or religiousÐit is only a consequence of consent. The discipline of an anrmy is not the product of the power of the generals but of the obedience of the soldiers...La Bo««tie has shown very well that it is not so much a type of servitude as it is voluntary. For spying upon men, the tyrant has only their eyes and ears, and for oppressing them, only the loan of their arms. PP91

4.38 Chptr IVÐThe Sacred A Transgression: Theory Of The Festival

4.39 Chapter V-The Sacred: Condition of Life And Gateway to Death