62 Science Religion and Reality 



charity, and in primitive religions as well as in higher it covers a 

 multitude of sins ; nay, it outweighs them. 



It is, perhaps, unnecessary to go in detail over all the other 

 types of religious acts, Totemism, the religion of the clan, which 

 affirms the common descent from or affinity with the totemic 

 animal, and claims the clan's collective power to control its supply 

 and impresses upon all the clan members a joint totemic taboo and 

 a reverential attitude towards the totemic species, must obviously 

 culminate in public ceremonies and have a distinctly social character. 

 Ancestor cult, the aim of which is to unite into one band of 

 worshippers the family, the sib or the tribe, must bring them together 

 in public ceremonies by its very nature, or else it would fail to 

 fulfil its function. Tutelary spirits of local groups, tribes, or 

 cities ; departmental gods ; professional or local divinities must 

 one and all — by their very definition — be worshipped by village, 

 tribe, town, profession, or body politic. 



In cults which stand on the border-line between magic and 

 religion, such as the Intichuma ceremonies, public garden rites, 

 ceremonies of fishing and hunting, the necessity of performance 

 in public is obvious, for these ceremonies, clearly distinguishable 

 from any practical activities which they inaugurate or accompany, 

 are yet their counterpart. To the co-operation in practical 

 enterprise there corresponds the ceremony in common. Only by 

 uniting the group of workers in an act of worship do they fulfil 

 their cultural function. 



In fact, instead of going concretely into all the types of religious 

 ceremony, we might have established our thesis by an abstract 

 argument : since religion centres round vital acts, and since all 

 these command public interest of joint co-operative groups, 

 every religious ceremony must be public and carried out by 

 groups. All crises of life, all important enterprises, arouse the 

 public interest of primitive communities, and they have all their 

 ceremonies, magical or religious. The same social body of men 

 which unites for the enterprise or is brought together by the 

 critical event performs also the ceremonial act. Such an abstract 

 argument, however, correct though it be, would not have allowed 

 us to get a real insight into the mechanism of public enactment of 

 religious acts such as we have gained by our concrete description. 



