little differentiation, religion to some extent and in some way functioned in all the major and in those minor institutions that demanded attention, whereas on the whole it functioned 3 3 Durkheim was familiar with these subtle functions of religion. His "Elementary Forms of the Religious Life" was the ripe product of a noted French sociological school and had the advantage of intimate acquaintance with a wide field. His very fitness for his task has emphasized the greatest handicap under which investigators now labor. However deep was his knowledge of the Australians and other peoples, his acquaintance with the Iroquois was not intimate. He referred mainly to a few general works on Indians and to those by Schoolcraft and by Morgan. He nowhere questioned Schoolcraft's unreliable statements. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of his generalizations have been inapplicable to the Iroquois. He asserted, for example, that religion and morality are identical. The student of the Iroquois, however, has not felt satisfied with an explanation of their personal morality solely in terms of their religion. Too many other considerations of tradition, warfare, social and physical environment, and personal influence such as that of Handsome Lake, have made it desirable to seek additional explanations. Durkheim's premise makes impossible any such discussion of the morality of savages as has been given in this paper. Likewise, his lengthy argument concerning totemism, not only as the most primitive religion but also as the religion of the clan, has found no approving echo in the facts of Iroquois life. Although they had a definite clan system their religion historically has been divorced from totemic notions. Moreover, it is not true for the Iroquois that the members of a clan have been united mainly by religious bonds. The Iroquois in historical times appear to have viewed the clan tie secularly. They did not hesitate consciously to adopt into a clan some captive or some white man who rendered them great service. Furthermore, most religious rites were tribal, usually under phratric directions, and were not distinctly clan functions. In fact there is no conclusive evidence that among the Iroquois the totem ever had any religious function. Durkheim has said that the totem also was the source of the moral life of the clan. Too much has been learned regarding other Iroquois institutions for that assertion to be accepted. Their virtues and vices, for instance, have been explained more satisfactorily without the use of totemic notions. Indeed, although the Iroquois had a definite clan system, the totem and notions concerning it in historical times have had very slight moral influence. The clan figures in the organization of the League, yet neither the Deganawida Myth nor the actual structure of the Confederation shows that totem notions functioned in that institution. Such facts as these have made many of Durkheim's generalizations concerning the play of the totem in the religion and morals of peoples with clan organization inapplicable to the Iroquois. Nor has there been greater success in apply only indirectly and slightly in personal morality. The study of the Iroquois has shown that their religious beliefs and practices before the days of Handsome Lake had slight and incidental influence upon their personal ethics. An Iroquois was kind or cruel, hospitable or unfriendly, grateful or ungrateful, truthful or untruthful, honest or dishonest, revengeful or forgiving, not especially because religion commanded such conduct but rather he was such according as these universal human traits happened to be developed in him; such development depended chiefly upon heredity, upon education as described, upon the demands of savage life, and upon the ordinary social rules and traditions which governed a relatively small group of people and which of course were in part religious. On the other hand, this study has shown that their religion had marked and direct influence upon standardized behavior. A few institutions such as marriage, hospitality and property ownership, which lacked attention-compelling qualities, had slight religious influences working in them; but those institutions which occupied so much of the Iroquois' attention, such as the political and particularly the economic, had religious elements in their very structure and were consecrated ing to them his dictum that the morality of religion consisted in the fact that religious forces were the impressions of society upon its members, society apparently being the mass of living persons in the community. Among the Iroquois the moral authority of the Great Spirit, for example, has been traced primarily to the teachings of foreign, white men and of Handsome Lake. That a boy performed certain initiation rites, an individualistic ceremony in many ways, appeared to have been due perhaps as much to such forces as personal ambition and his knowledge of tradition and custom, as to the impressions made upon him at puberty by the living group. In short, many facts among the Iroquois one has preferred to explain as much by means of their history, their culture, their traditions or their great men, as by the exertion of the social pressure of the given group. Durkheim's study illustrates the pitfalls and handicaps that continue to confront those who generalize concerning the relation of religion and morals among many peoples. The application of the results of so fine a study as that made by Durkheim or by Hobhouse reveals strikingly the crying need, on the part of students of the problem, for a series of studies of the relations of religion and morals in each of the many known groups of peoples, both of the present and of the past. by the religious attitude. It is not true for the Iroquois, therefore, that the religion of savages has slight bearing upon their morals. Their religion was connected definitely with instituted practices, sometimes in the form of a taboo or of a myth that gave an explanation other than a worldly one, and usually as a positive sanction or obligation to perform some act and as an evaluating agency. Among the Iroquois the chief rôle of religion in the moral sphere was that of a valuating and sanctioning force. Moreover, this function of religion effected itself in the moral sphere more powerfully than did any other sanctioning or evaluating agency. Reflection upon the circumstances of their life makes apparent why their religion played such a part in morality. The Iroquois cultural outlook, their knowledge of the physical world in which they lived, and their life from day to day, both precluded the use on many occasions of sanctions and valuational standards that function among us and made effective religious forces in what we call non-religious activities. In a really incomprehensible manner and despite his best personal efforts, the savage was disappointed in so many important desires and found so many crises to be truly fateful. An enemy might prove to be physically stronger, the seed might not grow, the boy may be an unsuccessful man, or the hunt may be fruitless. Under such circumstances and because of his outlook upon and the conditions of his life, the Iroquois had in religion his best instrument of control. One recalls how even their "face-to-face " relations, their marriage and property arrangements, and some other forms of behavior which normally happened not to attract attention or to be dangerous, under certain circumstances did become affected by religious influences. To insure wifely continence, for example, much to be desired but uncertain when one was off on a hunt or on the war-path, a quasireligious sanction was imposed. Would not her misconduct in some mysterious way inevitably bring untold peril upon her husband? When, as in this case, a contingency has arisen that otherwise could not be guarded against, or when there has been encountered some religious element like the dead in the Condolence, the supernatural in the dream, or the incomprehensible power of the "little waters" in healing, religion is found to be 4 Cf. Ch. IV above. * تم connected with the institution as an integral element or rite, or as a taboo or sanction, or because of a value-giving sacred myth. All such matters certainly demanded attention. Their uncomprehended elements raised doubts, hinted at dangers, made success uncertain and stirred up many emotions. One turned naturally to the spirits who were able to help. The religious became the most important sanction in life. The fundamental effect of missionary influence upon the Iroquois was to enlarge the sphere of the religious sanction behind behavior. It will be recalled that the introduction of Christianity, on the one hand, affected but superficially the religious influences already operating in or upon institutions. Some religious practices, such as the worship of Agreskoue, disappeared; additional beliefs, like that in the Great Spirit and in “heaven above," were accepted. Some myths were affected. The Creation Myth set forth a duality of good and evil that was Christian; the explanation of the founding of the League as given in the Deganawida Myth was subject to the influence of Christology. A few minor institutions became sanctioned by religion. For instance, customary ways of educating children came to be approved by the Great Spirit. But the old views persisted. Fundamentally, religious practices and the religious attitude manifested in institutional life were not modified.5 The Christian Church and the cultured Europeans' conceptions both of it and of its relations to man and to God were simply not comprehensible to an untutored Iroquois. They were foreign cultural elements. But contact with Christian teaching, on the other hand, did affect fundamentally the forms of approval of virtues and of disapproval of vices. One remembers that the Jesuits, civilized religious teachers, laid great stress upon personal chastity, kindness and other virtues. That emphasis never was made so sharply by the Iroquois, because they were not so individualistic as the cultured missionaries. The former tended to act more similarly, that is, their behavior was more standardized or institutionalized. those times and upon those occasions when some important action had to be performed and performed rightly, Iroquois behavior was ceremonial, the manner of acting being prescribed by religion which furnished the most important sanc5 See Chs. III, IV, above. At tion. On such occasions a savage would say, as it were, that According to his preaching, the missionary believed not i |