Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/6

 162 G. r6hEIM

thetic combination of them all in this world." * The Chinese temple symbolises the universe * or rather we should say that the cos- mological ideas of the Chinese were derived from the structure of their buildings and when we find the concept of the seven or nine strata of heaven amongst the rude tribes of Northern and Central Asia whose huts and tents present no analogy whatever to such a concept it is reasonable to infer that we have to do with traces of Chinese influence." If we thus come to the con- clusion that man projects his house into the universe we shall try to go back one step further and ask what unconscious mean- ing he attributes to his own immediate, artificial surrounding. In ' Hungarian the expression *■ hdztuznezni to go and look at the

' F, H. P. Gushing: "Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths", XIII. The Annual I Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1896, p. 367. "...in its ceremonial aspect

I the own square is symbolically a rainbow". Frank. G. Speck: Ethnology of

I the Yxichi Indians, 1909. Univ. Penns. Anthr. Publ., p. Ill, Cf. Ibid. 57, 59.

" "Der chinesische Tempel ebenso wie der Palast der GroBen oder das Haus. ., stellen jeder fUr sich zugleich das Universum dar in verkleineiter ■ . Ausgabe, gerade wie die Bewohner es sich, vorstellen". E. Boerschman: Die

I Baukunst und religiOse Kultur der Chinesen, 1911, I, p. 41. Cf. R. Andrea:

Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, 1878, S. 257; A. Bastian: Die VGlker des Ostlichen Asiens, 1866, I, p. 159; "The temple of the Huichol re- presents the Universe, its roof is the sky." K. Tp. Preuss: The Nayarit Ex- pedition, 1912, pp. xxiii, xxiv; "The temple of Sippar is a copy of the . Temple of Heaven." R. Eisler: Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, 1910, H, S. 606.

(Contains other instructive parallels on seven floored temples and a corre- sponding idea of the universe found in ancient Babylon. Like buildings we I frequently find cloaks and gannents which symbolise the universe. Besides

I Eisler's book which deals exhaustively and ingeniously with this subject see

■ J. J. M. de Groot: The Religious System of China. Vol. VI, Book II, 1910,

pp. 1266—8. This is quite evidently derived from the state of the embryo:

^ enveloped in the amnion like a cloak, the cloak forming the limits of its

Universe.)

» Cf. W. Radlofif; Aus Sibirien, 1884. Das Schamanenthum und sein Kultus; Gy. M6szaros: Csuvas Ssvallas emldkei (Survivals of Chuvash -Pagan- r ism), 1909, pp. 56, 247, 278; M. A. Czaplicka: Aboriginal Siberia, 1914, 281,

"The good spirits live in seventeen floors above the earth while the bad occupy seven or nine under it"; B. Bergmann: Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmttcken, 1804, HI, 17, 189; Smirnov: Les populations finnoises de la Volga et de la Kama, 1898, 138; "The vertical division of the Universe found in the mythology of the Bella Coola is perhaps derived from their totem- posts, with one generation on the top of the other. In fact they actually talk of a house v?ith a post in front in the upper heaven." F. Boas: The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians, Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, II, 1898, p. 28.

I