ABSTRACT
Throughout history punishment, in its severest physical forms, has been present in all major civilizations. Man's juxtaposition in the external world has made punishment a necessary and unavoidable part of life. In fact, punishment and religion are probably closely related in all civilizations and all cultures. An examination of the primitive origins of religion may help us to unearth the basic elements of punishment, in terms of both the motivation to punish and the forms that punishment has taken over the ages. Punishment, the bane of man's existence, becomes the natural food for the beautiful monster he has created: society. Society develops a "life of its own," as it were, in much the same way that spirits, because of the "omnipotence" of man's thought, develop a life of their own. Spirits and gods, as Durkheim observed, make demands on their worshipers, mainly because they were created by men as a means of going beyond nature.
