The Totems of Abydos (70 page)

“What is this theory?” asked Brenner.

It was now a warm afternoon, in the late summer. Rodriguez had wished to be carried to the summit of the cliff. He could see nothing from there, of course, but the sun was pleasant there, on the rock, and there was a gentle, refreshing breeze moving over the forest, and, perhaps most important, he recalled, that if he had had eyes, there would have been, from this point, a most impressive and beautiful view. We may conjecture that he saw this view, so to speak, in his memory.

Although the body of the former Pon in which his brain found its current habitat was a frail one, one wretched and vulnerable, and subject to infection, and cold, and misery, it was, at this point, within its limitations, healthy and sound. Rodriguez had been, several weeks ago, recovered from the door of death. He had been nursed back to health by the Pons with care, and with what skills remained to them of such matters, from long ago.

Before coming back to the height of the cliff Brenner had, at Rodriguez’ request, accompanied his friend to the graveyard. Rodriguez had himself clambered down into several of the graves, slipping down their now crumbling sides, as though to verify for himself that they were indeed empty.

“The sarcophagi in the chambers are also empty,” Brenner had informed him. “I examined them, opening them, and reclosing them, in the weeks after I returned you to the village.”

“All empty?” Rodriguez had asked.

“Yes,” had said Brenner.

“The Pons are in crisis,” said Rodriguez.

Brenner looked over the forest, toward the village.

“They have been treating you well?”

“They have treated me well, since you brought me back to the village,” said Rodriguez.

“They would let you come here, when you wish?”

“Yes, now,” said Rodriguez.

“But it is dangerous,” said Brenner.

“There is the string,” said Rodriguez. “I can hold to that.”

“It is only a string,” said Brenner.

“No one has more,” said Rodriguez.

“In what ways are the Pons in crisis?” asked Brenner.

“Sesostris, who was the keeper of the git,” said Rodriguez, “is a reflective fellow. Sometimes we talk.”

“I can remember,” said Brenner, “when you thought Pons lacked names.”

“He is aware that things must change.”

“In what way?” asked Brenner.

“Do you know what occurred here a thousand years ago?” asked Rodriguez.

“That which has recurred most recently,” said Brenner.

“After that,” said Rodriguez.

“No,” said Brenner.

“They did not speak to you of it?”

“No,” said Brenner.

“A thousand years ago,” said Rodriguez, “in the beginning of his generation, some of the offspring were less than Pons. They would fall to all fours.”

Brenner turned to regard Rodriguez.

“In the generation before that, one such incident had occurred. But in the last generation, several.”

Brenner looked out, over the forest.

“These offspring were destroyed, of course.”

“I do not understand,” said Brenner.

“They were monkeys, literally,” said Rodriguez.

Brenner shuddered.

“Do you recall,” asked Rodriguez, “how we thought the Pons were at the beginning?”

“Of course,” said Brenner.

“They are not the beginning,” said Rodriguez. “They are the end.”

“They are totemistic,” said Brenner.

“Yes,” said Rodriguez.

“Then this makes no sense,” said Brenner.

“There is a darker, more terrible sense than you understand here,” said Rodriguez.

“Continue,” said Brenner.

“There is an ancient theory of totemism,” said Rodriguez. “I have spoken to you of it, often. It is not a pretty theory, and it is not politically acceptable. Most do not know of it, because of the effectiveness of its suppression. As you know, nothing is permitted to be truth other than that which serves the purposes of those in power.”

“Continue,” said Brenner.

“We do know, of course, the pervasiveness, and ancientness, of totemism, recorded on a thousand worlds, of how it seems to lie, betrayed in its vestiges, at the base of civilization after civilization, of how it apparently antedates gods and heroes, religions and philosophies, codes and laws.”

“Yes,” said Brenner.

“We may then suspect,” said Rodriguez, “that it is correlated with, and reflects, something very profound in the psychology of various rational, or protorational, species, in particular, those whose propagation involves at least two sexes and a period of parental care.”

“Naturally,” said Brenner.

“What could this be?” asked Rodriguez.

“I do not know,” said Brenner.

“You never knew your mother and your father.”

“Of course not,” said Brenner.

“I did,” said Rodriguez. “I knew both.”

“You killed your father,” recalled Brenner.

“He abused my mother,” said Rodriguez. “That, in any event, was my excuse. It served at the time.”

“Your excuse?”

“It was not, really, that he had not abused her,” said Rodriguez, “but rather that I hated him, for she belonged to him, and not to me. I wanted the wholeness of her attention and love, with all the uncompromising, merciless greed of a child. He was the intruder, the enemy. That was why, really, I slew him. Do you think this was so terrible?”

“You were a child,” said Brenner. “You did not know any better.”

“I had been insufficiently socialized,” said Rodriguez. “But, other than that, do you think that I was so much different from others?”

“Perhaps not,” said Brenner. “I do not know.”

“I do not think so,” said Rodriguez. “They would tell you that I am strange, that I am rare, and that anyone who even suspects he might be like me is terrible, and must conceal this at all costs, and pretend to be pure and innocent, but that is not really true. That little drama, that triangle, of father, mother and son is thematic in our species, and, I think, in several others.”

“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.”