Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti

Author:Elias Canetti
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Survivor in Primitive Belief

Mana is the name given in the Pacific to a kind of supernatural and impersonal power, which can pass from one man to another. It is something which is much desired, and an individual can increase his own measure of it. A brave warrior can acquire it to a high degree, but he does not owe it to his skill in fighting or to his bodily strength; it passes into him as the mana of his slain enemy.

“In the Marquesas it was through personal prowess that a tribesman became a war chief. The warrior was thought to embody the mana of all those whom he had killed, his own mana increasing in proportion with his prowess. In the mind of the native, the prowess was the result, however, not the cause of his mana. The mana of the warrior’s spear was likewise increased with each death he inflicted. As the sign of his assumption of his defeated enemy’s power, the victor in a hand-to-hand combat assumed his slain foe’s name; with a view to absorbing directly his mana, he ate some of his flesh; and to bind the presence of the empowering influence in battle, to insure his intimate rapport with the captured mana, he wore as a part of his war dress some physical relic of his vanquished foe—a bone, a dried hand, sometimes a whole skull.”13

The effect of victory on the survivor could not be more clearly conceived. By killing his opponent the survivor becomes stronger and the addition of mana makes him capable of new victories. It is a kind of blessing which he wrests from his enemy, but he only obtains it if the latter is killed. The physical presence of the enemy, first alive and then dead, is essential. There must have been fighting and killing, and the personal act of killing is crucial. The manageable parts of the corpse which the victor removes and either embodies into himself, or wears as trophies, serve as continual reminders of the increase of his power. They make him feel stronger and he uses them to arouse terror; each new enemy he challenges trembles and sees the same fate threatening him.

The Murngin of Arnhem Land in Australia believe in a more personal but equally profitable relationship between the killer and the killed. The spirit of the slain man enters the body of the slayer, who then not only acquires double strength, but actually becomes larger. It is easy to imagine how this prospect stimulates young men in war, each of them seeking out an enemy in order to gain his strength. But this will only be achieved if the killing takes place by night, for by day the victim will see his murderer and will then be much too angry to enter his body.

This process of “entering” has been precisely described. It is so remarkable that I shall quote a large part of the description.

“When a man kills another during a feud, he returns home and does not eat cooked food until the soul of the dead man approaches him.

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