The Totems of Abydos

by John Norman

  “I do not know,” said Brenner.

  “This, in its time, was known by many names,” said Rodriguez, “the Oedipus Complex, the Oedipal Conflict, the Oedipal Syndrome, and such.”

  “I have not heard these expressions,” said Brenner.

  “That is a tribute to the effectiveness of the suppression of the theory,” said Rodriguez. “When it was found the theory could not be refuted, it was banned.”

  “I understand,” said Brenner. “Where do such names derive from?”

  “Ultimately from ancient literature,” said Rodriguez, “from the story of a king, Oedipus, who, unbeknownst to himself, slew his father and, later, also unbeknownst to himself, mated with his mother. Rather than face what he had done he gouged out his own eyes.”

  “What did the mother do?” asked Brenner.

  “She hung herself,” said Rodriguez.

  “But neither were to blame.”

  “Of course not,” said Rodriguez. “That is the point. These things, the resentment of the father, the desire for the mother, are natural, like breathing, like the circulation of the blood. Guilt is unwarranted. Guilt is absurd. But guilt occurs, particularly when these things are concealed, hidden. Particularly when it is pretended they do not exist. It is little wonder that individuals, lied to, made to feel isolated, and alone, made to feel degraded and debased, fear to recognize these things in themselves. These insights, these recognitions, on one level or another, often not clearly recognized, terrifying the individual, frightening him, exert their influence. They erupt, dreadfully, denied in a thousand ways, in a thousand neuroses and compulsions.”

  “Would it not be simpler to accept such things, if they are true, and simply move on and forget them?”

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez, “but that, you see, the acceptance, is what is forbidden! That would be to admit that we are as we are, not otherwise! It would be to admit that resentment, jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, lust, such things, are not strangers to us, but fundamental, congenital dispositions. That would be to admit that we are animals, and of a certain sort!”

  “Surely such insights are to be avoided at all costs,” said Brenner.

  “The cost of their avoidance is often sanity,” said Rodriguez.

  “What have these things to do with totemism?” asked Brenner.

  “What are the major tenets of totemism?” asked Rodriguez.

  “Such things as the sparing of the totem animal, its being regarded as the primal father, its veneration, and such, and exogamy, of course, the refusal to engage in sexual relations with members of the opposite sex who share the same totem.”

  “Do you not see the interesting parallelism?” asked Rodriguez.

  “I am not sure,” said Brenner.

  “It gives us, at the least,” said Rodriguez, “a surrogate of the Oedipal Conflict, symbolically transformed.”

  “I do not understand that,” said Brenner.

  “Consider the ambivalent feelings toward the father, that one loves him and respects him, that he is protector and provider, that one needs him, and is dependent upon him, and admires him, and identifies with him, but that, too, one fears him and hates him, and resents him and is jealous of him, and envies his authority, his strength, and power, and the painful, internal inconsistencies, and the confusions and guilts, which these ambivalent feelings generate. One denies such feelings, one refuses to acknowledge them. One then, in reaction, naturally enough, venerates the father and, of course, renounces all explicit rights to the mother.”

  “There are some similarities,” said Brenner.

  “Now,” said Rodriguez, excitedly, “let us suppose that there is a primitive family group.”

  “One such group?” asked Brenner.

  “Or ten thousand such groups, on a thousand worlds,” said Rodriguez. “This little drama I am going to suggest may have been enacted innumerable times in numerous places.”

  “But the species are similar?”

  “Of course, rational, or, more likely, protorational, at least two sexes, offspring requiring parental care.”

  “Go on,” said Brenner.

  “The nature of this primitive group is not clear,” said Rodriguez. “It could be an isolated group, with a single dominant male, with his females, and certain subordinate males, brothers, as in some primate species, or it might be, in effect, a group of such groups, as in other species, the dominant males of which, collectively, would constitute a power structure of the larger group, or tribe. Considering the need for unified authority commonly felt in most rational primate species, their tendencies, as they emerge from the cycles of a simpler nature, to found offices such as that of chieftain, king, and emperor, I think we may presume the likelihood of a genetic predisposition for submission to the authority of a single dominant male, one, to be sure, now open, given the developing complexities of life and culture, to consultation, and, indeed, one who may eventually find his role usurped by his most mythical surrogate, the state.”

  “Very well,” said Brenner.

  “Consider now the young males,” said Rodriguez, “the brothers. In some groups, and perhaps in the primitive group, particularly if it is a single-dominant-male group, they would, possibly, when of age, as in many types of species, be driven from the group. This is not necessary, of course, but it is useful to suppose. It would give them a common cause, and an opportunity to share their resentments and pool their resources, and such, outside the purview of the dominant male. Some of these young males may, of course, in time, be successful in forming their own family groups. They might acquire stray females, or, more likely, surprise them, and lead them away, in effect, capturing them, stealing them. They would do this, of course, at risk.”

  “What has this to do with totemism?” asked Brenner.

  “Let us suppose that the young males, living apart from the group, hate and envy the father, who has driven them away, and desire the females. They might then, and this does not require language, for it might be done with mimicry, with leaping about, seizing branches, and such, or it might even occur as a spontaneous movement of the group, rather like mob action upon occasion, attack and kill the father. Perhaps he is old. Perhaps he is weak. In any event, he succumbs to their collective might. Who now will be the father?”

  “The father is dead,” said Brenner.

  “Precisely,” said Rodriguez. “Each wanted to be as the father, to be the father, but now they are all equal, or rather so. None is strong enough to be the father. None are permitted to be the father. The authority is gone. What will become of the group? What will replace the father? They look about. They see only one another. Are they brothers now, or are they not, rather, all rivals, all enemies? Suddenly, in victory, are they not all sundered from one another? How is the victory to be exploited? Authority is abolished. Chaos reigns. There is no one, even, to allot the females. Shall they kill one another for them? Suddenly they feel their loss, their misery, their vulnerability, their danger, their isolation, their separation, their aloneness, their guilt. They must now, in effect, in words or not, form what one might speak of, and not entirely metaphorically, as the social compact. They must understand, with or without words, how they are to live. What can replace the father? No one of them. The father is dead. What must now govern them is something different, not the fist of the father, but the authority, the weapon, of the agreement, of the compact. Here we see the beginning of ethics, of law, perhaps of civilization.”

  Brenner shuddered.

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez. “It is thus that history, linearity, novelty, release from the cycles of nature, may have begun, with an act of murder. Culture itself may have its roots in an ancient crime. It is plausible that there is blood on the first step to civilization.”

  “It need not have been so,” said Brenner. “Let us suppose, for the sake of discussion, that we grant three controversial points, all denied by the official theories. Let us suppose, first, that the organism is not hollow, so to speak, but th
at it has a complex, profound genetic heritage, involving numerous behavioral dispositions, as is the case with other species, that it has, so to speak, a nature. Two, let us suppose, granting this to your heretical theory, as opposed to the official theories, that this nature, in its complexity and profundity, the result of thousands of generations of selections, may not be totally irrelevant to the culture, institutions, and such, developed by the organism in question. Thirdly, let us grant that there might possibly be something to your theory of totemism, namely, that it might have some connection with the Oedipal syndrome. Even granting all this, it would still not be necessary that civilization began, so to speak, with a crime, with murder. The father need not have been killed. Totemism could then be seen as a symbolic rejection of the Oedipal impulses. Sensing the Oedipal ambivalence toward the father might have been sufficient to generate totemism.”

  “As in the case of the neurotic, substituting a symbolic action for a suppressed impulse?”

  “Possibly,” said Brenner.

  “Do you think this could have been done with the father’s knowledge?”

  “That would seem unlikely,” said Brenner. “It would seem possible, however, that something like that might have occurred after the death of the father, perhaps as a way of dealing with ambivalent feelings.”

  “There are at least two reasons for doubting that,” said Rodriguez. “First, you may not understand the childlike mind, and the primitive mind, as you are trained in reflection, and rationality. For you there is a clear and immeasurable chasm between impulse and act, between thought and deed. In the childlike mind, in the primitive mind, and, more importantly, in the animal, or animal-like, mind, which is presumably what we are dealing with here, it is unlikely that there is any such chasm. The relationship between seeing and touching, wanting and taking, hating and striking, if one can do it with impunity, is very close and intimate. It seems to me much more likely that the stone, or the club, or the teeth, were actually stained with the blood of the father.”

  “But you do not know that.”

  “No,” said Rodriguez. “I was not there.”

  “What is the second reason?” asked Brenner.

  “The traditions of the totemistic peoples,” said Rodriguez, “and the nature of the totem feasts.”

  Brenner shuddered.

  “In the totem feast,” said Rodriguez, “the father, under the form of the animal, is literally killed. There is rejoicing, a relaxing of the bars of custom and taboo, chaos, and license, and then, soon, given the ambivalence of feeling, for the father is loved, as well as feared and hated, and the sense of loss, the frightened comprehension of the collapse of authority, the trepidation before the looming debacle of anarchy, the misery, the guilt, and such, you have the dismay, the terror, the misery, the sorrow, the grief, the mourning, and, of course, soon thereafter, the restoration of the ways of the group, the veneration of the new father, the renunciation of the females, and such.”

  “The feast, then, you think, is a commemoration, and reenactment, of the original totem feast, that following the crime, the murder of the father?” said Brenner.

  “That seems to me likely,” said Rodriguez.

  “But why the substitution of a totem animal?” asked Brenner.

  “There could be many reasons,” said Rodriguez. “I shall suggest three, which are rather obvious. First, the father is dead. There is no new father. Thus, something else must be used. And surely, as none of the brothers can take the father’s place, and, indeed, most would not wish to share that fate, an animal, or some other object is chosen. It stands in place of the father. Secondly, over time, the use of the animal tends to conceal what was actually done. Most totemistic peoples, and perhaps most of the Pons, may have lost touch with the origins of these things. They accept the totem animal as the father, and such, and kill it, and celebrate the totem feast, and so on, without really understanding it, or its possible connection with things in their remote past. How few rituals are truly understood. Thirdly, the substitution of an animal, and often a large, frightening animal, for the father, is a common symbolic substitution, frequently found in children. The child develops a fear of a certain animal, and can flee it, be comforted in its terrors, and such, with impunity, it not being understood, normally, by either the child or its parents, that the real source of fear is the father. The hostility toward the father, the fear of father, and, indeed, the child’s admiration of the power of the father, and its envy of his authority, and such, is neatly, safely, displaced onto the animal. What here takes place often enough in children, we might speculate also took place, long ago, in primitive, or even animal, or animal-like, minds. There are surely affinities here, between the childlike mind, naive in its understanding of the world, and such, and the primitive mind, similarly naive, let alone the animal, or animal-like, mind.”

  “There seems a frightening plausibility to these things,” said Brenner.

  “Symbolic transformations, and substitutions, are quite common,” said Rodriguez.

  “It is strange that a theory so simple, so clear, so precise, so consistent with all we know, which reconciles so much data, so rich in explanatory power, so superior to its competitors, is false,” said Brenner.

  Rodriguez laughed.

  “The evidence of the graves, of course,” said Brenner. “They were empty.”

  “Of course,” smiled Rodriguez.

  “In the oldest grave, if in no others, you should have found the bones of a Pon, of the first father,” said Brenner. “But they were not there.”

  “True,” smiled Rodriguez.

  “You do not seem too dismayed at this disproof of your theory,” remarked Brenner.

  “It is getting late, is it not?” asked Rodriguez.

  “Yes,” said Brenner.

  “I must be going,” said Rodriguez.

  Rodriguez then stood up, and reached out, and fastened his hands in Brenner’s fur and, clinging there, was carried down the trail, to the platform, and thence to the side of the string.

  “As you are standing, facing me,” said Brenner, “the string is to your left.”

  Rodriguez touched the string. “Yes,” he said. “It is here.”

  “Are they coming to fetch you?” asked Brenner.

  “I think so,” said Rodriguez.

  “Wait for them,” said Brenner.

  “I think I will go ahead,” said Rodriguez.

  “Do you not want me to come with you?”

  “No,” said Rodriguez.

  “Will you not come again, to see me soon?” asked Brenner.

  “Perhaps,” said Rodriguez.

  “You said that the Pons were in crisis, before.”

  “Yes.”

  “They seem a strange form of life,” said Brenner.

  “You do not know who they are, do you?” asked Rodriguez.

  “No,” said Brenner.

  “Were you not curious that they could be crossfertile with you?”

  “The chances of that were exceedingly slim,” said Brenner.

  “Not really,” said Rodriguez.

  “I do not understand,” said Brenner.

  “It is unusual, is it not,” asked Rodriguez, “that their speech is intelligible to us?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Brenner, hesitantly. “Most of those at Company Station speak our language, and the Pons could have adopted it from them.”

  “In this remoteness, this wilderness, so isolated, with no sign of an underlying native tongue?”

  “What are you suggesting?” said Brenner.

  “Does there not seem something vaguely, remotely familiar, to you about the Pons?”

  “I had such feelings once,” admitted Brenner.

  “Why, do you think?”

  “Perhaps from certain physiognomical similarities to our species, or emotional affinities with it, or such,” said Brenner. “It is hard to say.”

  “Do they not remind you of certain illustrations, of certain artist’s con
ceptions, of certain artist’s reconstructions,” asked Rodriguez, “based on fossilized remnants, bits of a jaw, a few teeth, a bone, the shards of skull, such things?”

  “Of course,” said Brenner. “Pons seem much like the sorts of creatures from which we ourselves, as a species, once arose. That is one of the things that makes them so interesting.”

  “You suspect then that they may have great promise, that there is an evolutionary ascendancy before them?”

  “Hopefully so,” said Brenner.

  “Perhaps it is behind them,” said Rodriguez.

  “I do not understand,” said Brenner.

  Rodriguez was silent.

  “You are suggesting that the Pons are the result of devolution?” asked Brenner, suddenly.

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez.

  “But we are supposed to learn from them. In many ways the Pons, in their innocence, gentleness, and inoffensiveness, are supposed to give us lessons. They are supposed to prove that species such as ours are naturally good, “good” as understood by, and defined by, current political doctrine. Indeed, they are supposed to provide us with a beacon, too, for the future. They are supposed to epitomize the values proclaimed by our society as characterizing the veritable pinnacle of evolution.”

  “They represent the decline of a race,” said Rodriguez. “They are tragic remnants of a once rational species. There is not one morality, but many, and they are incommensurable. One is a morality of nature, an aristocratic morality, a morality of lions, of beasts, and gods, a morality of warriors, of hunters, of pioneers and seekers, a morality of pride, power, honor, loyalty, responsibility, discipline, and courage, and striving, a morality that summons to adventure, and calls for heroes. Another morality is that of insects and mice, and flowers, a morality for a homogenized species, effete and weary, introverted, subjective, examining its conscience incessantly, of false humility, of sham pity, of emotional wallowing, of ostensible self-effacement and secret self-congratulation, of pretension, a morality of species self-betrayal and self-treason. It is the morality of weariness, and preparation for death. In the ascendancy of a species the first morality is dominant, that of the conqueror and lover, the explorer, the hunter, and warrior. Later, in the glorification of the puny, in the wreathing of the mouse in the laurel of the victor, in the substitution of guilt for projects, in the teaching that it is good to be little, and wrong to be grand, in the lie that all are the same, in the denial of, or concealment of, rank, distance, and hierarchy, you have the decline, the descent, of the species. It is without projects, unless they be those of negation and leveling. It begins to live from day to day. The horizons no longer beckon. The songs of the mountains fall on deaf ears. There begins, then, the retreat to the cycles of nature. And it ends by falling again to all fours.”