26
PARTISAN REVIEW
the mythology of the. remotest Australian and Papuan tribes. This
made
him
flare up. "I've read those people too!" 1:\e exclaimed.
"Those so-called anthropologists of yours! They are absolute idiots,
completely incapable of feeling the extraordinary and supernatural
power of our totems, the black snake, the scarab, and the kangaroo.
It can, of course, only be
felt.
They solemnly discuss our totems as
though they were matters that could be discussed, but they are quite
incapable of feeling things which every Papuan boy, and even every
Papuan woman, takes for granted!" When his agitation was at its
height he produced a notebook from his pocket and gave it to me to
read, telling me that that was his revenge. He had called it
The In–
credible Superstitions of the Backward European Tribes.
This title
pleased me so much that I read it all through at a sitting. He turned
out to
be
an acute observer of the customs of old Europe, his virgin
eyes revealing to
him
innumerable fetishes, idols, totems, and taboos
tfiat preside over the most important acts of our collective life, I might
say practically without our being aware of them. I have never seen a
more radical or irrefutable criticism of our present civilization. The
picture was painted unsystematically and in anecdotic form; he mere–
ly described his discoveries in the order in which they were made.
As
you can well imagine, the whole Catholic liturgy, with its incense,
candles, unguents, ashes, relics; and sacraments, was given the place
of honor. But there were plenty of curious observations of our private
lives. I remember in particular a highly involved discussion between
the Papuan and a Roman lady who had a golden wedding ring on her
finger. Mter questioning her about why she wore it, the young man
had passed on to discussing the relations between wedding rings and
conjugal fidelity, the
Propaganda Fide
institution and the idea of
faithfulness to one's country. In the end the poor woman was left be–
wildered and speechless. One day he was taken with the rest of the col–
lege to the Piazza Venezia to render homage at the tomb of the
Unknown Soldier, situated at the foot of the "altar of the fatherland."
"Is the fatherland a madonna too?" he asked a superior. "No," was
the reply. "Then why is there an altar to it?" "That is something you
cannot understand." "Why not?" Carabinieri came up and told
him
to hush.
"If
I have to hush it must be because the fatherland is a ma–
donna too," he went on muttering. Another day he had noted: "I
read in a paper that in Abyssinia the Roman wolf has driven out the
Lion of Judah. It seems that the British lion betrayed the Lion of Ju–
dah.
As
with us at home, every big European tribe venerates a totemic
ancestor; France has the cock, Germany the eagle, Italy also the
eagle, Rome a she-wolf with a litter of two cubs, while Holland, Bel–
gium, Sweden, and many other countries have the lion, which seems
