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Cornell University Library 
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 Totemism, by J.G. Frazer 
 
 9 1924 029 870 197 
 
TOTEMISM 
 
A 11 rights reserved. 
 
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 Ml (,/;i;y 
 
 TOTEMISM 
 
 J. G. FRAZER, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND OF THE 
 MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER- AT-LAW. 
 
 EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVIT. 
 
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NOTE. 
 
 Shcce the late J. F. M'Lennan first pointed out the 
 importance of Totemism for the early history of society, 
 various writers have treated of the subject and added to 
 his materials, but no one, I believe, has tried to collect 
 and classify all the main facts, so far as they are at 
 present known. Accordingly, when the Editors of the 
 new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica did me the 
 honour of asking me to write the article Totemism, I had 
 to do the work of collection and classification for my- 
 self, with very little help from my predecessors. The 
 materials grew under my hand till it became clear that 
 only a selection of them could be given within the 
 limits of an Encyclopaedia article. I venture, however, 
 to put forth my full collection of facts bearing on savage 
 Totemism, in the hope that it may help to lighten the 
 labours of those who are working in the same field. 
 On the question of the traces of Totemism among the 
 civilised races of antiquity, I have collected a certain 
 amount of evidence, but it is still too fragmentary for 
 publication. I hope at a future time to examine the 
 evidence fully. 
 
 I regret that Mr Andrew Lang's Myth, Ritual, and 
 Religion did not reach me till after my little work was 
 passed for the press. A comprehensive work on Tattooing, 
 by Mr W. Joest, is just announced by Messrs Asher and 
 Co. of Berlin. 
 
 JAMES G. FBAZEE. 
 
 Uth October 1887. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029870197 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Totem defined, p.l; orthography of totem, 1 sq. ; totem distinguished 
 from fetich, 2 ; kinds of totems — elan totem, sex totem, indi- 
 vidual totem, 2 ; religious and social sides of totemism, 2 sq. 
 
 I. Clan Totems, 2-51 ; 57-82. 
 
 Religious side of Totemism. — Descent from the totem, 
 3-7 ; marks of respect for the totem, 7-11 ; split totems, 
 10 ; totem taboos, 11-13 ; cross totems, cross-split totems, 
 13 sq. ; totem animal kept in captivity, 14 ; dead totem 
 mourned and buried, 14 sq. ; totem not spoken of directly, 
 15 ; effects of acting disrespectfully to totem, 1 6-18 ; 
 Samoan mode of appeasing offended totem, 18 ; Australian 
 food taboos, 18 sq. ; diminished respect for totem, 19 sq. ; 
 totem respects the clansman, 20 ; totem tests of kinship, 
 20 sq. ; totem ordeals and oaths, 21 sq. ; totem cures, 
 22 sq. ; totem omens, 23 sq. ; putting pressure on totem, 
 24 ; inanimate totems, 24-26 ; assimilation of a man to 
 his totem by wearing skin, &c. of totem, 26 sq. ; by 
 dressing hair in imitation of totem, 27 ; by knocking out 
 or tiling teeth, 27 sq. ; by nose-sticks, 28 ; by tatooing, 
 28 sq. ; by painting, 30 ; totem carved or painted on 
 huts, canoes, grave-posts, &c, 30-32 ; birth ceremonies, 
 32 sq. ; marriage ceremonies, 33-36 ; death ceremonies, 
 36 sq. ; initiation ceremonies at puberty, 38-47 ; social 
 side of these ceremonies, 38-40 ; totem dances at initia- 
 tion, 39 sq. ; other animal dances, 40-42 ; religious side 
 of initiation ceremonies, 42-47 ; food prohibitions, 42-45 ; 
 admission to life of clan by blood-smearing, &c, 45 sq. ; 
 resurrection, 46 sq. ; new birth, 47 ; totem killed as 
 piacular sacrifice, 48 sq. ; religious associations of North 
 American Indians, 49 sq. 
 
Till CONTENTS. 
 
 II. Sex Totems, 51-53. 
 
 III., Individual Totems, 53-56. 
 
 Social side of Totemism. — Blood feud, 57 sq. ; exogamy 
 and endogamy, 58-69 ; phratries in America, 60-64 ; 
 origin of phratries and of split totems, 62-64 ; fusion of 
 clans, 64 ; phratries in Australia, 64-67 ; equivalence of 
 tribal subdivisions throughout Australia, 67-69 ; Aus- 
 tralian traditions as to origin of tribal subdivisions, 69 ; 
 rules of descent, 69-79 ; female and male descent iu 
 Australia, America, Africa, and India, 69-72 ; indirect 
 female and male descent in Australian subphratries, 72- 
 74 ; sons take totem from father, daughters from mother, 
 74 sq. ; transition from female to male descent, transference 
 of children, or of wife and children, to husband's clan, 
 76-79 ; cannibalism, 79-81 ; arrangement of totem clans 
 in camp, village, and graveyard, 81 sq. 
 
 IV. SUBPHBATKIC AND PlIEATRIC TOTEMS, 82-84. 
 
 V. SUBTOTEMS, 85-87. 
 
 Subtotems, clan totems, subphratric and phratric totems, 
 how related to each other, 87 ; transformation of totems 
 into anthropomorphic gods with animal attributes, 87-90 ; 
 transformation of totem clans into local clans, 90 sq. 
 
 Geographical diffusion of totemism, 91-95 ; origin of totemism, 
 95 ; influence of totemism on animals and plants, 95 sq. ; 
 literature of totemism, 96. 
 
 ADDENDUM. 
 
 47. The pretence of killing a youth at puberty in order that 
 he may be born anew from his totem (the wolf), is probably 
 the meaning of a ceremony described in Adventures and 
 Sufferings of John M. Jewitt (Edin., 1824), p. 135 sq.; of. 
 37, 47. On initiation as a new birth, see also A. Bastian, 
 Zut naturwissenschaftlichen Behandlungsweise der Psychologie, 
 p. 128 sq. 
 
TOTEMISM. 
 
 A totem is a class of material objects which a savage re- ■ 
 gards with superstitious respect, believing that there exists ' 
 between him and every member of the class an intimate 
 and altogether special relation. The name is derived j 
 from an Ojibway (Chippeway) word totem, the correct 
 spelling of which is somewhat uncertain. It was first 
 introduced into literature, so far as appears, by J. Long, 
 an Indian interpreter of last century, who spelt it totam. 1 
 The form toodaim is given by the Eev. Peter Jones, him- 
 self an Ojibway; 2 dodaim by Warren 3 and (as an alterna- 
 tive pronunciation to totem) by Morgan; 4 and ododam by 
 Francis Assikinack, an Ottawa Indian. 6 According to the 
 abbe Thavenet 6 the word is properly ote, in the sense of 
 "family or tribe,'' possessive otem, and with the personal 
 pronoun nind otem "my tribe,'' kit otem "thy tribe." In 
 
 1 Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter, p. 86, London, 
 1791. 
 
 2 History of the Ojebway Indians, London, 1861, p. 138. 
 
 3 "History of the Ojibways," in Collections of the Minnesota 
 Historical Society, vol. v. (St Paul, Minn., 1885) p. 34. 
 
 4 Ancient Society, p. 165. 
 
 6 See Academy, 27th Sept. 1884, p. 203. 
 
 6 In J. A. Cuoq's Lexique de la. langue Algonquine (Montreal, 
 1886), p. 312. Thavenet admits that the Indians use ote in the sense 
 of " mark " (limited apparently to a family mark), hut argues that the 
 word must mean family or tribe. 
 
2 TOTEMISM. 
 
 English the spelling totem (Keating, James, Schoolcraft, 1 
 <&c.) has become established by custom. (The connexion 
 between a man and his totem is mutually beneficent ; the 
 
 Uotem protects the man, and the man shows his respect 
 for the totem in various ways, by not killing it if it be 
 an animal, and not cutting or gathering it if it be a plant. 
 
 j As dis ting uished from a fetich, a totem is never an iso- 
 
 ' lated individual, but always a class of objects, generally 
 a species of animals or of plants, more rarely a class of 
 inanimate natural objects, very rarely a class of artificial 
 objects. 1 
 
 Considered in relation to men, totems are of at least 
 three kinds : — (1) the clan totem, common to a whole clan, 
 and passing by inheritance from generation to generation ; 
 (2) the sex totem, common either to all the males, or to all 
 the females of a tribe, to the exclusion in either case of 
 
 ' the other sex; (3) the individual totem, belonging to a 
 single individual and not passing to his descendants. 
 Other kinds of totems exist and will be noticed, but they 
 may perhaps be regarded as varieties of the clan totem. 
 The latter is by far the most important of all ; and where 
 we speak of totems or totemism without qualification, the 
 reference is always to the clan totem. 
 
 The Clan Totem. — The clan totem is reverenced by a 
 
 ' body of men and women who call themselves by the name 
 of the totem, believe themselves to be of one blood, de- 
 scendants of a common ancestor, and are bound together 
 by common obligations to each other and by a common 
 
 1 Expedition to Itasca Lake, New York, 1834, p. 146, &c. Petitot 
 spells it todem in his Monographic des Deni-DindjiS, p. 40; but he 
 writes oUmisme in his Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord-ouest, 
 p. 446. 
 
TOTEMISM. 3 
 
 faith in the totem. Totemism is thus both a religious and 
 a social system. In its religious aspect it consists of the 
 relations of mutual respect and protection between a man 
 and his totem ; in its social aspect it consists of the rela- 
 tions of the clansmen to each other and to men of other 
 clans. In the later history of totemism these two sides, 
 the religious and the social, tend to part company ; the 
 social system sometimes survives the religious ; and, on 
 the other hand, religion sometimes bears traces of totemism 
 in countries where the social system based on totemism 
 has disappeared. How in the origin of totemism these 
 two sides were related to each other it is, in our ignorance 
 of that origin, impossible to say with certainty. But on 
 the whole the evidence points strongly to the conclusion 
 that the two sides were originally inseparable ; that, in 
 other words, the farther we go back, the more we should 
 find that the clansman regards himself and his totem as 
 beings of the same species, and the less he distinguishes 
 between conduct towards his totem and towards his fellow- 
 clansmen. For the sake of exposition, however, it is con- 
 venient to separate the two. We begin with the reli- 
 gious side. 
 
 Totemism as a Religion, or the Relation between a Man 
 and his Totem.- — -The members of a totem clan call them- 
 selves by the name of their totem, and commonly believe 
 themselves to be actually descended from it. 
 
 Thus the Turtle elan of the Iroquois are descended from a fat 
 turtle, which, burdened by the weight of its shell in walking, con- 
 trived by great exertions to throw it off, and thereafter gradually 
 developed into a man. 1 The Bear and "Wolf clans of the Iroquois 
 
 1 Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 
 1883, p. 77. 
 
4 TOTEMISM. 
 
 are descended from bears and wolves respectively. 1 The Cray- 
 Fish elan of the Choetaws were originally eray fish and lived 
 underground, coming up occasionally through the mud to the 
 surface. /Once a party of Choetaws smoked them out, and, treat- 
 ing them kindly, taught them the Choctaw language, taught them 
 to walk on two legs, made them cut off their toe nails and pluck 
 the hair from their bodies, after which they adopted them into 
 the tribe. But the rest of their kindred, the cray fish, are still 
 living underground. 2 ^ The Carp clan of the Outaouaks are de- 
 scended from the eggs of a carp which had been deposited by 
 the fish on the banks of a stream and warmed by the sun. 3 The 
 Ojibways are descended from a dog. 4 The Crane clan of the 
 Ojibways are descended from a pair of cranes, which after long 
 wanderings settled on the rapids at the outlet of Lake Superior, 
 where they were transformed by the great spirit into a man and 
 woman. 5 The Black Shoulder clan (a Buffalo clan) of the Omahas 
 were originally buffaloes and dwelt under the surface of the water. 6 
 The Osages are descended from a male snail and a female beaver. 
 The snail burst his shell, developed arms, feet, and legs, and became 
 a fine tall man; afterwards he married the beaver maid. 7 The 
 clans of the Iowas are descended from the animals from which 
 they take their names, namely, eagle, pigeon, wolf, bear, elk, 
 beaver, buffalo, and snake. 8 The Moquis say that long ago the 
 Great Mother brought from the west nine clans in the form of 
 deer, sand, water, bears, hares, tobacco-plants, and reed-grass. 
 She planted them on the spots where their villages now stand and 
 transformed them into men, who built the present pueblos, and from 
 whom the present clans are descended. 9 The Californian Indians, 
 
 1 Timothy Dwight, Travels in New-England and New-York 
 (London,, 1823), iv. p. 184. 
 
 2 Catlin, North American Indians, ii. p. 128. 
 
 3 Lettres fidifiantes et Curieuses, Paris, 1781, vi. p. 171. 
 
 i A. Mackenzie, Voyages through the Continent of North America, 
 p. cxviii; Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 118. So 
 with the Kaniagmuts, Dall, Alaska and its Resources, p. 404 sq. 
 
 6 Morgan, Anc. Soc., p. 180. 
 
 6 Third Ann. Rep. of Bur. of Ethnol., Washington, 1884, pp. 
 229, 231. Another Buffalo clan among the Omahas has a similar 
 legend (ib., p. 233). 
 
 7 Schoolcraft, The American Indians, p. 95 sq. ; Lewis and Clarke, 
 Travels to the Source of the Missouri River, 8vo, London, 1815, i. 
 p. 12. 8 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, iii. 268 sq. 
 
 9 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tri., iv. 86. With the Great Mother Mr 
 
TOTEMISM. 5 
 
 in whose mythology the coyote or prairie-wolf is a leading personage, 
 are descended from coyotes. At first they walked on all fours; 
 then they began to hare some members of the human body, one 
 finger, one toe, one eye, &c, then two fingers, two toes, &c, and 
 so on till they became perfect human beings. The loss of their 
 tails, which they still deplore, was produced by the habit of sitting 
 upright. 1 The Lenape or Delawares were descended from their 
 totem animals, the wolf, the turtle, and the turkey; but they 
 gave precedence to the Turtle clan, because it was descended, not 
 from a common turtle, but from the great original tortoise which 
 bears the world on its back and was the first of living beings. 2 The 
 Haidas of Queen Charlotte Islands believe that long ago the 
 raven, who is the chief figure in the mythology of the north-west 
 coast of America, took a cockle from the beach and married it; the 
 cockle gave birth to a female child whom the raven took to wife, 
 and from their union the Indians were produced. 3 The Kutchin 
 trace the origin of their clans to the time when all beasts, birds, 
 and fish were people ; the beasts were one clan, the birds another, 
 and the fish another. 1 The Arawaks in Guiana assert that their 
 clans are descended from the eponymous animal, bird, or plant. 5 
 Some of the aboriginal tribes of Peru (not the Inca race) were 
 descended from eagles, others from condors. 6 Some of the clans 
 
 Morgan compares the female deity worshipped by the Shawnees under 
 the title of "Our Grandmother" (Anc. Soc, p. 179»). 
 
 1 Schoolcraft, op. cit., iv. 224 sq., cf. v. 217 ; Boscana in A. 
 Robinson's Life in California, p. 298. Mr Stephen Powers, perhaps 
 the best living authority on the Californian Indians, finds no totems 
 among them (Tribes of California, p. 5). See, however, pp. 147, 
 199 of his work for some traces of totemism. 
 
 2 Brinton, The Lenape and their Legends, p. 39. 
 
 3 Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for 1878-79, p. 
 149b sq. ; F. Poole, Queen Charlotte Islands, p. 136 ; Ausland, 6th 
 October 1884, p. 796. Among the neighbouring Thlinkets the raven 
 (Jeshl) is rather a creator than an ancestor. See Holmberg, " Ethno- 
 graphische Skizzen ueber die Voelker des russischen Amerika," in 
 Acta Soe. Sc. Fenniem, Helsingfors, iv. (1856) p. 292 sq. ; Baer and 
 Helmersen, Beitr. zur Kenntn. des russ. Reiches, i. p. 104. So with 
 the wolf in North-West America; it made men and women out of 
 two sticks (Baer and Helmersen, op. cit., i. 93). In Thlinket mytho- 
 logy the ancestor of the Wolf clan is said never to appear in wolf form 
 (Holmberg, op. cit., p. 293). 
 
 4 Dall, Alaska, p. 197. 
 
 5 Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 184. 
 
 6 Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, pt. i. 
 bk. i. chs. 9, 18. 
 
6 TOTEMISM. 
 
 of western Australia are descended from duck?, swans, and other 
 water fowl. 1 The Geawe-gal tribe in New South "Wales believe 
 that each man is akin to his totem in an unexplained way. 2 The 
 Santals in Bengal, one of whose totems is the wild goose, trace 
 their origin to the eggs of a wild goose. 3 In Senegambia each 
 family or clan is descended from an animal (hippopotamus, croco- 
 dile, scorpion, &c.) with which it counts kindred. 4 The inhabitants 
 of Funafuti or Ellice Island in the South Pacific believe that the 
 place was first inhabited by the porcupine fish, whose offspring 
 became men and women. 5 The Kalaug, who have claims to be 
 considered the aborigines of Java, are descended from a. princess 
 and a chief who had been transformed into a dog. 6 Some of the 
 inhabitants of the islands Ambon, Uliase, Keisar (Makisar), and 
 Wetar, and the Aaru and Babar archipelagoes, are descended from 
 trees, pigs, eels, crocodiles, sharks, serpents, dogs, turtles, &c. 7 
 
 Somewhat different are the myths in which a human ancestress 
 is said to have given birth to an animal of the totem species. 
 Thus the Snake clan among the Moquis of Arizona are descended 
 from a woman who gave birth to snakes. 8 The Bakalai in western 
 equatorial Africa believe that their women once gave birth to the 
 totem animals ; one woman brought forth a calf, others a crocodile, 
 hippopotamus, monkey, boa, and wild pig. 9 In Samoa the prawn 
 or cray fish was the totem of one clan, because an infant of the 
 clan had been changed at birth into a number of prawns or cray- 
 fish. 10 In some myths the actual descent from the totem seems to 
 have been rationalized away. Thus the Bed Maize clan among the 
 Omahas say that the first man of the clan emerged from the water 
 with an ear of red maize in his hand. 11 A subclan of the Omahas 
 
 1 Sir George Grey, Vocabulary of the Dialects of South- Western 
 Australia, pp. 29, 61, 63, 66, 71. 
 
 2 Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 2S0. 
 
 3 Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 209 ; Asiat. Quart. 
 Rev., July 1886, p. 76. 
 
 4 Revue d' Ethnographic, iii. p. 396, v. p. 81. 
 
 5 Turner, Samoa, p. 281. 
 
 6 Baffles, History of Java, ed. 1817, i. p. 328. 
 
 7 J. G. F. Biedel, De sluik- en hroesharige Rassen tusschen Selebes 
 en Papua (The Hague, 1886), pp. 32, 253, 334, 414, 432. 
 
 8 Bourke, SnaJce Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, p. 177. 
 
 9 Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, 
 p. 308. 10 Turner, op. cit., p. 77. 
 
 11 B. James, Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, 
 London, 1823, ii. p. 48 sq. ; Third Ann. Rep. of Bur. of Ethnol. 
 p. 231. 
 
TOTEMISM. 7 
 
 say that the reason" why they do not eat buffalo tongues and heads 
 is that one of their chief men, while praying to the sun, once saw 
 the ghost of a buffalo, visible from the flank up, rising out of a 
 spring. 1 Two clans of western Australia, who are named after «. 
 small species of opossum and a little fish, think that they are so 
 called because they used to live chiefly on these creatures. 2 Some 
 families in the islands Leti, Moa, and Lakor reverence the shark, 
 and refuse to eat its flesh, because a shark once helped one of their 
 ancestors at sea. 3 The Ainos of Japan say that their first ancestor 
 was suckled by a bear, and that is why they are so hairy. 4 
 
 Believing himself to be descended from, and therefore 
 akin to, his totem, the savage naturally treats it with respect. 
 If it is an animal he will not, as a rule, kill nor eat it. In 
 the Mount Gambier tribe (South Australia) " a man does 
 not kill or use as food any of the animals of the same sub- 
 division with himself, excepting when hunger compels; and 
 then they express sorrow for having to eat their wingong 
 (friends) or tumanang (their flesh). When using the last 
 word they touch their breasts, to indicate the close relation- 
 ship, meaning almost a part of themselves. To illustrate : 
 —One day one of the blacks killed a crow. Three or four 
 days afterwards a Boortwa (crow) named Larry died. 
 He had been ailing for some days, but the killing of his 
 leingong hastened his death." 5 Here the identification of 
 the man with his totem is carried very far ; it is of the 
 same flesh with him, and to injure any one of the species 
 is physically to injure the man whose totem it is. Mr 
 Taplin was reproached by some of the Narrinyeri (South 
 Australia) for shooting a wild dog ; he had thereby hurt 
 their ngaitye (totem). 6 The tribes about the Gulf of Car- 
 
 1 Third Report, p. 231. 2 Grey, Vocabulary, 4, 95. 
 
 3 Riedel, op. cit, p. 376 sq. 
 
 * Reclus, Nouv. Geogr. Univ., vii. p. 755. 
 
 5 Stewart in Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 169. 
 
 6 Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 64. 
 
8 TOTEMISM. 
 
 . pentaria greatly reverence their totems ; if any one were 
 to kill the totem animal in presence of the man whose 
 totem it was, the latter would say, " What for you kill 
 that fellow 1 that my father ! " or " That brother belonging 
 to me you have killed ; why did you do it 1 " x Again, 
 among some Australian tribes " each young lad is strictly 
 forbidden to eat of that animal or bird which belongs to 
 his respective class, for it is his brother." 2 Sir George 
 Grey says of the western Australian tribes that a man 
 will never kill an animal of his Icohong (totem) species if 
 he finds it asleep ; " indeed, he always kills it reluctantly, 
 and never without affording it a chance to escape. This 
 arises from the family belief that some one individual of 
 the species is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be 
 a great crime, and to be carefully avoided." 3 Amongst 
 the Indians of British Columbia a man will never kill his 
 totem animal ; if he sees another do it, he will hide his 
 face for shame, and afterwards'demand compensation for 
 the act. Whenever one' of these Indians exhibits,; his 
 totem badge (as by painting it on his forehead), all per- 
 sons of the same totem are bound to do honour to it by 
 casting property before it. 4 The Osages, who, as we have 
 seen, believe themselves descended from a female beaver, 
 abstained from hunting the beaver, " because in killing 
 that animal they killed a brother of the Osages." 5 The 
 Ojibways (Chippesvays) do not kill, hunt, or eat their totems. 
 An Ojibway who had unwittingly killed his totem (a bear) 
 
 1 Jour. Anthrop. Inst, xiii. p. 300. 2 lb., p. 303. 
 
 3 Grey, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North- West 
 and Western Australia, ii. p. 228. 
 
 4 R. C. Mayne, British Columbia, p. 258. 
 Lewis and Clark, i. p. 12. 
 
TOTEMISM. 9 
 
 described how, on his way home after the accident, he was 
 attacked by a large bear, who asked him why he had killed 
 his totem. The man explained, apologised, and was dis- 
 missed with a caution. 1 Being descended from a dog, the 
 Ojibways will not eat dog's flesh, and at one time ceased to 
 employ dogs to draw their sledges. 2 Some of the Indians 
 of Pennsylvania would not kill the rattlesnake, because 
 they said it was their grandfather, and gave them notice 
 of danger by its rattle. They also abstained from eating 
 rabbits and ground-hogs, because " they did not know but 
 that they might be related to them." 3 The Damares 
 in South Africa are [divided into totem clans, called 
 " eandas " ; and according to the clan to which they be- 
 long they refuse to partake, e.g., of an ox marked with 
 black, white, or red spots, or of a sheep without horns, or 
 of draught oxen. Some of them will not even touch 
 vessels in which such food has been cooked, and avoid 
 even the smoke of the fire which has been used to cook it. 4 
 The negroes of Senegambia do not eat their totems. 6 
 The Mundas (or Mundaris) and Oraons in Bengal, who are 
 divided into exogamous totem clans, will not kill or eat 
 the totem animals which give their names to the clans. 6 
 
 1 J. Long, op. cit., p. 87. 
 
 2 A. Mackenzie, loc. cit.; Bancroft, i. 118. The dog does not 
 appear in the list of Ojibway totems given by Morgan (A. S., p. 
 166) and P. Jones (Hist, of Ojehvay Indians, p. 138). 
 
 3 J. Heckewelder, "Account of the History, Manners, and Customs 
 of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the 
 neighbouring States," in Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc, Philadelphia, 
 1819, i. p. 245. This, combined with the mention of the ground-hog 
 in the myths of their origin, points, as Heckewelder observes, to a 
 ground-hog tribe or clan (ib., p. 244). 
 
 4 C. J. Anderson, Lake Ngami, p. 222 sa. 
 6 Revue d' Elhnographie, iii. p. 396. 
 
 6 Dalton in Trans, lithnolog. Soc., new series, vi. p. 36 ; Id., 
 
10 TOTEMISM. 
 
 A remarkable feature of some of these Oraon totems is, 
 that they are not whole animals, but parts of animals, as 
 the head of a tortoise, the stomach of a pig. In such cases 
 (which are not confined to Bengal) it is of course not 
 the whole animal, but only the special part which the 
 clansmen are forbidden to eat. Such totems may be 
 distinguished as split totems. The Jaganuathi Kumhar in 
 Bengal abstain from killing or injuring the totems of their 
 respective clans (namely tiger, snake, weasel, cow, frog, 
 sparrow, tortoise), and they bow to their totems when they 
 meet them. 1 The Badris, also in Bengal, may not eat of 
 their totem, the heron. 2 The inhabitants of Ambon 
 Uliase, Keisar (Makisar), Wetar, and the Aaru and Babar 
 archipelagoes may not ea,t the pigs, crocodiles, sharks, 
 serpents, dogs, turtles, eels, &c, from which they are 
 respectively descended. 3 
 
 When the totem is a plant the rules are such as these. 
 ■ A native of western Australia, whose totem is a vegetable, 
 " may not gather it under certain circumstances and at a 
 particular period of the year." 4 The Oraon clan, whose 
 totem is the leaf of the Ficus Indicus, will not eat from 
 the leaves of that tree (the leaves are used as plates). 5 
 Another Oraon clan, whose totem is the Kujrar tree, will 
 not eat the oil of that tree, nor sit in its shade. 6 The Bed 
 
 Ethnol. of Bengal, pp. 189, 254; As. Quart. Rev., July 1886, p. 76. 
 Among the Muncla totems are the eel and tortoise ; among the Oraons 
 the hawk, crow, heron, eel, kerketar bird, tiger, monkey, and the 
 leaves of the Ficus Indicus. 1 As. Quart. Rev., July 1S86, p. 79. 
 
 2 Dalton, Ethnol. of Bengal, p. 327. 
 
 3 Riedel, op. tit., pp. 61, 253, 341, 414, 432. 
 
 4 Grey, Journals, ji. 228 sq. 
 
 5 Dalton, Ethn. of Bengal, p. 254; As. Quart. Rev., July 1886, p. 76. 
 
 6 Dalton, op. cit., 254; Id., in Trans. Ethnol. Soc., vi. p. 36; As. 
 Quart. Rev., loo. cit. 
 
TOTEMIRM. 11 
 
 Maize clan of the Omahas will not eab red maize. 1 Those 
 of the people of Ambon and Uliase who are descended 
 from trees may not use these trees for firewood. 2 
 
 The rules not to kill or eat the totem are not the only- 
 taboos ; the clansmen are often forbidden to touch the 
 totem or any part of it, and sometimes they may not even 
 look at it. 
 
 Amongst the Omaha taboos are the following. (1) The Elk elan 
 neither eat the flesh nor touch any part of the male elk, and 
 they do not eat the male deer. 3 (2) A subelan of the Black 
 Shoulder (Buffalo) clan may not eat buffalo tongues nor touch a 
 buffalo head (split totem). 4 (3) The Hanga clan is divided into two 
 subclans, one of which may not eat buffalo sides, geese, swans, nor 
 cranes, but they may eat buffalo tongues ; the other may not eat 
 buffalo tongues but may eat buffalo sides (split totems). 5 (4) 
 Another subelan may not touch the hide of a black bear nor eat its 
 flesh. 6 (5) The Eagle subelan, curiously enough, may not touch a 
 buffalo head. 7 (6) A Turtle subelan may not eat a turtle, but 
 they may touch or carry one. 8 (7) Another clan may not touch 
 verdigris. 9 (8) The Buffalo-Tail clan may not eat a calf while it is 
 red, but they may do so when it turns black ; they may not touch 
 a buffalo head ; they may not eat the meat on the lowest rib, 
 because the head of the calf before birth touches the mother near 
 that rib. 10 (9) The Deer-Head clan may not touch the skin of any 
 animal of the deer family, nor wear moccasins of deer skin, nor 
 use the fat of the deer for hair-oil ; but they may eat the flesh 
 of deer. 11 (10) A subelan of the Deer-Head clan had a special taboo, 
 
 1 E. James, Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, 
 ii. p. 48 ; Third Rep. Bur. Ethnol., p. 231. 
 
 2 Riedel, op. cit., p. 61. 
 
 8 James, op. cit., ii. 47; Third Rep., 225. 
 
 4 Third Rep., 231. . 5 Third Rep., 235. 6 lb., 237. 
 
 7 lb., 239. There seems to be a cross connexion between the 
 Eagles and the Buffaloes among the Omahas; for a. subelan of the 
 Buffalo clan (the Black Shoulder clan) had a series of eagle birth- 
 names in addition to the buffalo birth-names common to the whole 
 clan (ib., 231 sq. ). 
 
 8 lb., 240. James (op. cit, ii. 49) says they " do not touch turtles 
 or tortoises. " 9 James, loc. cit.; Third Rep. , 241. 
 
 10 James, loc. cit. ; Third Rep. ,244. 
 
 11 James, loc. cit.; Third Rep., 245. 
 
12 TOTEMISM. 
 
 being forbidden to touch verdigris, charcoal, and the skin of a 
 wild cat. According to others, the whole Deer-Head clan was 
 forbidden to touch charcoal. 1 (11) Another clan does not eat a 
 buffalo calf. 2 (12) Another ,cran does not touch worms, snakes, 
 toads, frogs, nor any other kind of reptiles ; hence they are some- 
 times called Reptile People. 3 
 
 Of the totem clans in Bengal it is said that they "are prohibited 
 from killing, eating, cutting, burning, carrying, using, &c," the 
 totem. 4 The Keriahs in India not only do not eat the sheep, hut 
 will not even use a woollen rug. 5 Similarly in ancient Egypt (a nest 
 of totems) the shepp was reverenced and eaten by no one except the 
 people of Wolf town (Lycopolis), and woollen garments were not 
 allowed to be carried into temples. 6 Some of the Bengal totem 
 taboos are peculiar. The Tirki clan of the Oraons, whose totem is 
 young iniee, will not look at animals whose eyes are not yet open, 
 and their own offspring are never shown till they are wide awake. 7 
 Another Oraon clan objects to water in which an elephant has 
 bathed. 8 A Mahili clan will not allow their daughters to enter 
 their houses after marriage ; a, Kurmi clan will not wear shell 
 ornaments ; another will not wear silk ; another give children their 
 first rice naked. 9 
 
 The Bechuanas in South Africa, who have a. well-developed 
 totem system, may not eat nor clothe themselves in the skin of 
 the totem animal. 10 They even avoid, at least in some cases, to 
 look at the totem. Thus to a man of the Bakuena (Bakwain) or 
 Crocodile clan, it is "hateful and unlucky" to meet or gaze on a 
 
 1 Third Sep., 245 sq. Verdigris was thought to symbolize the 
 blue sky. 2 Third Rep., 248. 
 
 3 James, ii. 50 ; Third Rep., 248. 
 
 4 As. Quart. Rev., July 1886, p. 75. 
 
 6 V. Ball, Jungle Life in India, p. 89. 
 
 6 Herod., ii. 42, 81 ; Plut., Is. et Os., §§ 4, 72. Again the sheep 
 was worshipped in Samos (Aelian, N. A., xii. 40; Clem. Alex., 
 Protrept. , 39) ; and Pythagoras, a native of Samos, forbade his 
 followers to wear or be buried in woollen garments (Herod., ii. 81 ; 
 Apuleius, De Magia, 56). 
 
 7 Dalton in Tr. Ethnol. Soc., vi. 36. For the totem, Id., Ethnol. 
 of Bengal, p. 254; As. Quart. Rev., 76. The reason of the taboo 
 is perhaps a fear of contracting blindness. Some North American 
 Indians will not allow their children to touch the mole, believing that 
 its blindness is infectious (J. Adair, History of the American Indians, 
 p. 133). 8 Tr. Ethnol. Soc, vi. 36. 
 
 9 As. Quart. Rev., July 1886, p. 77. 
 
 10 Cusalis, The Basutos, p. 211. 
 
TOTEMISM. 13 
 
 crocodile ; the sight is thought to cause inflammation of the eyes. 
 So when a Crocodile clansman happens to go near a crocodile he 
 spits on the ground as a preventive charm, and says, "There is 
 sin." Yet they call the crocodile their father, celebrate it in their 
 festivals, swear by it, and make an incision resembling the mouth 
 of a crocodile in the ears of their cattle as a mark to distinguish 
 them from others. 1 The puti (a kind of antelope) is the totem of 
 the Bamangwats, another Bechuana clan ; and to look on it was a 
 great calamity to the hunter or to women going to the gardens. 2 
 The common goat is the sacred animal (totem ?) of the Madenassana 
 Bushmen ; yet " to look upon it would be to render the man for 
 the time impure, as well as to cause him undefined uneasiness. " 3 
 
 A Samoan clan had for its totem the butterfly. The insect was 
 supposed to have three mouths ; hence the Butterfly men were 
 forbidden ' ' to drink from a cocoa-nut shell water-bottle which had 
 all the eyes or openings perforated. Only one or at the most 
 two apertures for drinking were allowed. A third would be a 
 mockery, and, bring down the wrath of his butterflyship. " 4 
 
 Cross Totems. — Another Samoan clan had for its totem the ends of 
 leaves and of other things. These ends were considered sacred, and 
 not to be handled or used in any way. It is said to have been no 
 small trouble to the clansmen in daily life to cut off the ends of all 
 the taro, bread-fruit, and cocoa-nut leaves required for cooking. 
 Ends of yams, bananas, fish, &c, were also carefully laid aside 
 and regarded as being as unfit for food as if they had been poison. 5 
 This is an example of what may be called a cross totem, i.e.., atotem 
 which is neither a whole animal or plant, nor a part of one parti- 
 cular species of animal or plant, but is a particular part of all (or 
 of a number of species of) animals or plants. Other examples of 
 cross totems are the ear of any animal (totem of a Mahili clan in 
 Bengal) ; 6 the eyes of fish (totem of a Samoan clan) ; 7 bone (totem 
 of the Sauks and Foxes in North America) : 8 and blood (totem of 
 the Blackfeet Indians). 9 More exactly, such totems should be 
 
 1 Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, 
 p. 255 ; John Mackenzie, Ten Years North of the Orange River, p. 
 135m; Casalis, The Basutos, p. 211. 
 
 2 J. Mackenzie, op. cit., 391 sq. ; cf. Jour. Anthrop. Inst, xvi. 
 p. 84. 3 J. Mackenzie, op. cit.. 135. 
 
 4 Turner, Samoa, p. 76. 5 lb., 70. 
 
 6 As. Quart. Rev., July 1886, p. 77. 
 
 7 Turner, op. cit, p. 74. 8 Morgan, A. S., p. 170. 
 9 lb., p. 171. 
 
14 TOTEMISM. 
 
 called cross-split totems ; while the name cross totem should be 
 reserved for a totem which, overstepping the limits of a single 
 natural species, includes under itself several species. Examples 
 of such cross totems are the small bird totem of the Omahas, 
 the reptile totem of the Omahas, 1 and the big tree totem of the 
 Sauks and Foxes. 2 
 
 Sometimes the totem animal is fed or even kept alive in captivity. 
 A Samoan clan whose totem was the eel used to present the 
 first fruits of the taro plantations to the eels; 3 another Samoan 
 clan fed the cray-fish because it was their totem. 4 The Delawares 
 sacrificed to hares ; to Indian corn they offered bear's flesh, but to 
 deer and bears Indian corn ; to fishes they offered small pieces of 
 bread in the shape of fishes. 5 Amongst the Narrinyeri in South 
 Australia men of the Snake clan sometimes catch snakes, pull out 
 their teeth or sew up their mouths, and keep them as pets. 6 In a 
 Pigeon clan of Samoa a pigeon was carefully kept and fed. 7 
 Amongst the Kalang in Java, whose totem is the red dog, each 
 family as a rule keeps one of these animals, which they will on no 
 account allow to be struck or ill-used by any one. 8 Eagles are 
 kept in cages and fed in some of the Moqui villages, and the eagle 
 is a Moqui totem. 9 The Ainos in Japan keep eagles, crows, owls, 
 and bears in cages, and show a superstitious reverence for them ; 
 the young bear cubs are suckled by the women. 10 
 
 The dead totem is mourned for and buried like a dead elnnsman. 
 In Samoa, if » man of the Owl totem found a dead owl by the 
 road side, he would sit down and weep over it and beat his forehead 
 with stones till the blood flowed. The bird would then be wrapped 
 up and buried with as much ceremony as if it had been a human 
 being. ' ' This, however, was not the death of the god. He was 
 
 1 Third Rep., 238, 248. 2 Morgan, A, S., 170. 
 
 3 Turner, op. cit., p. 71. 4 lb., p. 77. 
 
 5 Loskiel, History of the Mission of the United Brethren in North 
 America, i. p. 40; De Sohweiuitz, Life of Zeisberger, p. 95 sq. 
 
 6 Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 63. 
 
 7 Turner, op. cit., p. 64. 
 
 8 Raffles, Hist, of Java, i. p. 328, ed. 1817. 
 
 9 Bourke, Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, pp. 252, 336. 
 
 10 /. A. I., ii. 252, 254; Id., iii. 239; Rein, Japan, i. 446 sq.\ 
 Siebold, Ethnol. Stud, ueber die Ainos, p. 26 ; Scheube, Der Baeren- 
 cultus und die Baerenfest der Ainos, p. 44 sq. Young bears are 
 similarly brought up (though not suckled) by the Giljaks, a people 
 on the lower Amoor, who are perhaps akin to the Ainos (Scheube, 
 Die Ainos, p. 17; Revue d ' Ethnographie, ii. p. 307 sq.). 
 
TOTEMISM. 15 
 
 supposed to be yet alive, and incarnate in'all the owls in existence. " * 
 The generalization here implied is characteristic of totemism ; it is 
 not merely an individual hut the species that is reverenced. The 
 Wanika in eastern Africa look on the hysena as one of their 
 ancestors, and the death of a hysena is mourned by the whole 
 people ; the mourning for a chief is said to be as nothing compared 
 to the mourning for a hysena. 2 A tribe of southern Arabia used to 
 bury a dead gazelle wherever they found one, and the whole tribe 
 mourned for it seven days. 3 The lobster was generally considered 
 sacred by the Greeks, and not eaten; if the people of Seriphos (an 
 island in the .ffigean) caught a lobster in their nets they put it 
 back into the sea ; if they found a dead one, they buried it and 
 mourned over it as over one of themselves. 4 At Athens any man 
 who killed a wolf had to bury it by subscription. 5 A Californian 
 tribe which reverenced the buzzard held an annual festival at which 
 the chief ceremony was the killing of a buzzard without losing a 
 drop of its blood. It was then skinned, the feathers were preserved 
 to make a sacred dress for the medicine-man, and the body was 
 buried in holy ground amid the lamentations of the old women, 
 who mourned as for the loss of a relative or friend. 6 
 
 As some totem clans avoid looking at their totem, so others are 
 careful not to speak of it by its proper name, but use descrip- 
 tive epithets instead. The three totems of the Delawares — the 
 wolf, turtle, and turkey — were referred to respectively as "round 
 foot," "crawler," and "not chewing," the last referring to the 
 bird's habit of swallowing its food; and the clans called themselves, 
 not Wolves, Turtles, and Turkeys, but "Round Feet," " Crawlers," 
 and "Those who do not chew." 7 The Bear clan of the Ottawas 
 called themselves not Bears but Big Feet. 8 The object of these 
 
 1 Turner, op. cit., p. 21, cf. 26, 60 sq. 
 
 2 Charles New, Life, Wanderings, and Lahowrs in Eastern Africa, 
 p. 122. 
 
 3 Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Marly Arabia, p. 195. 
 
 4 Aelian, JY. A ., xiii. 26. The solemn burial of a sardine by a river- 
 side is a ceremony observed in Spain on Ash Wednesday (Folk-Lore 
 Record, iv. 184 sq.). 
 
 5 ayeipti ainif ra wpbs tt)v Ta<p^v. Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, 
 ii. 124. 
 
 6 Boscana, in Alfred Robinson's Life in California, p. 291 sq. ; 
 Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, iii. p. 168. 
 
 7 Brinton, The Lenape and their Legends, p. 39; Morgan, A. S., 
 p. 171 ; Heckewelder, p. 247. 
 
 8 Acad., 27th Sept. 1884, p. 203, quoting from the Canadian 
 Journal (Toronto), No. 14, March 1853. 
 
16 TOTEMISM. 
 
 circumlocutions is probably to give no offence to the worship- 
 ful animal, just as Swedish herd girls are careful not to call the 
 wolf and the bear by their proper names, fearing that if they heard 
 themselves so called the beasts would attack the cattle. Hence 
 the herd girls call the wolf "the silent one," "grey legs," "golden 
 tooth"; and the bear "the old man," "great father," "twelve 
 men's strength," "golden feet," &C. 1 Similarly the Kamtchatkans 
 never speak of the bear and wolf by their proper names, believing 
 that these animals understand human speech. 2 Bushmen think 
 it very unlucky to refer to the lion by name. 3 
 
 The penalties supposed to be incurred by acting disre- 
 spectfully to the totem are various. The Bakalai think 
 that if a man were to eat his totem the women of his 
 clan would miscarry and give birth to animals of the totem 
 kind, or die of an awful disease. 4 The Elk clan among 
 the Oinahas believe that if any clansman were to touch 
 any part of the male elk, or eat its flesh or the flesh of 
 the male deer, he would break out in boils and white spots 
 in different parts of the body. 5 The Red Maize subclan 
 of the Omahas believe that, if they were to eat of the red 
 maize, they would have running sores all round their 
 mouth. 6 And in general the Omahas believe that to eat 
 of the totem, even in ignorance, would cause sickness, not 
 only to the eater, but also to his wife and children. 7 
 White hair is regarded by them as a token that the person 
 has broken a totem taboo, e.g., that a man of the Reptile 
 clan has touched or smelt a snake. 8 The inhabitants of 
 Wetar think that leprosy and madness are the result of 
 
 1 L. Lloyd, Peasant Life in Sweden, p. 251. 
 
 2 Steller, Beschr. von dem Lande Kamtschatka, p. 276. 
 
 3 J. Mackenzie, Ten Tears North of the Orange River, p. 151. 
 
 4 Du Chaillu, Squat. Afr., p. 309. 
 
 6 Third Rep., 225. 6 lb., 231. 
 
 7 James, Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, ii. p. 50. 
 
 8 Third Rep., 275. 
 
TOTEMISM. 17 
 
 eating the totem. 1 The worshippers of the Syrian goddess, 
 whose creed was saturated with totemism, believed that if 
 they ate a sprat or an anchovy their whole bodies would 
 break out in ulcers, their legs would waste away, and their 
 liver melt, or that their belly and legs would swell up. 2 
 The Egyptians, one of whose totems seems to have been 
 the pig, thought that if a man drank pig's milk his body 
 would break out in a scab. 3 The Bosch negroes of Guiana 
 think that if they ate the capidi (an animal like a pig) it 
 would give them leprosy. 4 The Singhie tribe of Dyaks, 
 whose totem seems to be the deer (they will not eat its 
 flesh nor allow it to be carried into their houses or cooked 
 at their fires; the grown men will not even touch it), believe 
 that if any man were to eat deer's flesh he would go mad ; 
 a man who ran about the forest naked, imitating the noises 
 and habits of a deer, was thought to have eaten venison. 5 
 The Samoans thought it death to injure or eat their 
 totems. The totem was supposed to take up his abode in 
 the sinner's body, and there to gender the very thing 
 which he had eaten till it caused his death. 6 
 
 Thus if a Turtle man ate of a turtle he grew very ill, and the 
 voice of the turtle was heard in his inside saying, " He ate me ; 
 I am killing him." 7 If a Prickly Sea-Urchin man consumed one of 
 these shell-fish, a prickly sea-urchin grew in his body and killed 
 him. 8 Pig's heart and octopus were equally fatal to the eater 
 who had these for his totem. 9 If a Mullet man ate a mullet he 
 squinted. 10 If a Cockle man picked up a cockle and carried it away 
 from the shore, it appeared on some part of his person ; if he actually 
 
 1 Riedel, op. tit., p. 452. 
 
 2 Plutarch, Be Superst., 10; Selden, De dis Syris, p. 269 sq., 
 Leipsic, 1668. 3 Plutarch, Isis et Os., 8. 
 
 4 J. Crevaux, Voyages dans tAmirique du Sud, p. 59. 
 
 5 Low, Sarawak, p. 265 sq.. 306. 6 Turner, Samoa, p. 17 sq. 
 7 lb., p. 50. ' 8 lb., 51. 
 
 9 lb., 72. i« lb., 61, 75. 
 
18 TOTEMISM. 
 
 ate it, it grew on his nose. 1 If a man whose totem was the ends of 
 banana leaves used one of them as a cap, baldness was the result. 2 
 If a Butterfly man caught a butterfly, it struck him dead. 3 The 
 Wild Pigeon clan might not use as plates the reddish-seared 
 breadfruit leaves " under a penalty of being seized with rheumatic 
 swellings, or an eruption all over the body called tangosusu, and 
 resembling chicken-pox." 4 If a Domestic Fowl man ate of that 
 bird, delirium and death were the consequence. 6 
 
 In such cases, however, theSamoans had a mode of appeasing the 
 angry totem. The offender himself or one of his clan was wrapped 
 in leaves and laid in an unheated oven, as if he were about to 
 be baked. Thus if amongst the Cuttle-Fish clan a visitor had 
 caught <i cuttle-fish and cooked it, or if a Cuttle-Fish man had 
 been present at the eating of a cuttle-fish, the Cuttle-Fish clan 
 met and chose a man or woman who went through the pretence of 
 being baked. Otherwise a cuttle-fish would grow in the stomach 
 of some of the clan and be their death. 6 So with the stinging 
 ray fish and the mullet. But if a member of the clan of which 
 these two fish were the joint totem tasted either of them, then, in 
 addition to the baking, he had to drink a cup of rancid oil dregs, 
 probably as a purgative. 7 This pretence of cooking a clansman 
 seems to have been especially obligatory when the totem had been 
 cooked in the oven. To have afterwards used the oven without 
 going through this form of expiation would have been fatal to the 
 family. 8 
 
 In Australia, also, the punishment for eating the totem 
 appears to have been sickness or death. 9 But it is not 
 merely the totem which is tabooed to the Australians ; 
 they have, besides, a very elaborate code of food prohibi- 
 tions, which vary chiefly with age, being on the whole 
 strictest and most extensive at puberty, and gradually 
 relaxing with advancing years. Thus young men are 
 forbidden to eat the emu ; if they ate it, it is thought 
 
 1 lb., 40. 2 lb., 76. 
 
 8 lb., 76. 4 lb., 70. 
 
 5 lb., 37. 6 lb., 31 sq. 
 
 7 lb., 33, cf. 72. 8 lb., 59, cf. 53, 69 sq., 72. 
 
 9 /. A. I., xiii. p. 192. 
 
TOTEMISM. 19 
 
 that they would be afflicted with sores all over their 
 bodies. 1 The restrictions on women till they are past the 
 age of child-bearing seem to be more numerous than those 
 on men. Children are not restricted at all, nor are old 
 men and old women. 2 These restrictions are removed by 
 an old man smearing the person's face with the fat of the 
 forbidden animal. 8 
 
 In some tribes the respect for the totem has lessened or dis- 
 appeared. Thus the Narrinyeri in South Australia do not kill 
 their totem unless it is an animal which is good for food, when 
 they have no objection to eating it. 4 Mr Eyre never observed 
 any reluctance on the part of the natives of South Australia to 
 kill their totems. 5 Some natives of New South Wales, though 
 they will not themselves kill their totem, have no objection to 
 any one else killing it and they will then eat it. 6 The Dieri in 
 South Australia pay no particular respect to their totems, and 
 they eat them, 7 A Samoan of the Turtle clan, though he would 
 not himself eat a turtle, would help a neighbour to cut up and 
 cook one ; but in doing so he kept a bandage over his mouth 
 lest an embryo turtle should slip down his throat, grow up, and 
 kill him. 8 
 
 A Bechuana will kill his totem if it be a hurtful animal, 
 e.g., a lion, but not without apologising to the animal ; and 
 the slayer must go through a form of purification for the 
 sacrilege. 9 Similarly in North America, if an Outaouak of the 
 Bear clan killed a bear, he made the beast a feast of its own flesh 
 and harangued it, apologising for the necessity he was under of 
 killing it, alleging that his children were hungry, &e. 10 Some but 
 not all of the Moqui clans abstain from eating their totems. 11 The 
 
 1 T. L. Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern 
 Australia, ii. p. 341. 
 
 2 See especially Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into 
 Central Australia, ii. 293 sq. ; but see below, p. 44. 
 
 3 /. A. I., xiii. 456, xiv. 316. 
 
 4 Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 63. 
 
 6 Eyre, Jour., ii. 328. 6 J- A. I., xiv. 350. 
 
 7 Mr Samuel Gason of Beltana, South Australia, in a letter to the 
 present writer. See /. A. I., xvii. 8 Turner, op. eit., p. 67 sq. 
 
 9 Casalis, The Basutos, p. 211. 10 Lett. Edif, vi. p. 171. 
 
 11 Morgan, A. 8., p. 180, cf. Id., 86. 
 
20 TOTEMISM. 
 
 tribes about Alabama and Georgia had no respect for their totems, 
 and would kill them when they got the chance. 1 The Oniahas do 
 not worship their totems. 2 
 
 The relation between a man and his totem is one of 
 mutual help and protection. If the man respects and cares 
 for the totem, he expects that the totem will do the same 
 by him. In Senegambia the totems, when they are 
 dangerous animals, will not hurt their clansmen; e.g., men 
 of the Scorpion clan affirm that scorpions (of a very deadly 
 kind) will run over their bodies without biting them. 3 A 
 similar immunity from snakes was claimed by a Snake 
 clan (Ophiogenes) in Cyprus. 4 Another Snake clan (Ophio- 
 genes) in Asia Minor, believing that they were descended 
 from snakes, and that snakes were their kinsmen, sub- 
 mitted to a practical test the claims of any man amongst 
 them whnm they suspected of being no true clansman. 
 They made a snake bite him; if he survived, he was a 
 true clansman ; if he died, he was not. 5 
 
 Similar is the test of a medicine-man among the Moxos 
 of Peru. One of their totems is the tiger (jaguar); and a 
 candidate for the rank of medicine-man must prove his 
 kinship to the tiger by being bitten by that animal and 
 surviving the bite. 6 The Psylli, a Snake clan in Africa, 
 had a similar test of kinship ; they exposed their new-born 
 children to snakes, and if the snakes left them unharmed 
 
 1 Adair, Hist. Amer. Indians, p. 16. 
 
 2 Dorsey in American Antiquarian, v. 274. 
 
 3 Revue d' Bthnographie, iii. p. 396. 
 
 4 Pliny, N. H., xxviii. 30. 
 
 5 Varro in Priscian x. 32, vol. i. p. 524, ed. Kiel. For the snake 
 descent of the clan, see Strabo, xiii. 1, 14; Aelian, N. A., xii. 39. 
 
 6 "Relation de la Mission des Moxes dans le Perou," printed in Fr. 
 Coreal's Voyages aux Indes Occidentales, iii. p. 249, and in Lett, tldif., 
 viii. p. 89. 
 
TOTEMISM. 21 
 
 or only bit without killing them, the children were legiti- 
 mate ; otherwise they were bastards. 1 In Senegambia, at 
 the present day, a python is expected to visit every child 
 of the Python clan within eight days after birth; a 
 Mandingo of this clan has been known to say that if his 
 children were not so visited, he would kill them. 2 
 
 The Malagasy custom of placing a new-born child at the entrance 
 to a cattle-pen, and then driving the cattle over it to see whether 
 they would trample on it or not, was perhaps originally a kin- 
 ship test. 3 Another birth test of kinship with the sacred animal 
 (though ofa different kind) is thatused to discover the new Dhurma 
 Raja in Assam. He is supposed to be an incarnation of the deity ; 
 and when he dies the child that refuses its mother's milk and 
 prefers that of a cow is the new Dhurma Raja. 4 This points to a 
 cow totem. 
 
 Other totem clans regard a man who has been bitten by 
 the totem, even though he survives, as disowned by the" 
 totem, and therefore they expel him from the clan. 
 Among the Crocodile clan of the Bechuanas, if a man has 
 been bitten by a crocodile, or merely had water splashed 
 over him by a _ crocodile's tail, he is expelled the clan. 6 
 Some judicial ordeals may have originated in totem tests 
 of kinship. Thus, in Travancore, there was a judicial 
 ordeal by snake-bite ; the accused thrust his hand into a 
 mantle in which a cobra was wrapped up ; if it bit him, 
 he was guilty ; if not, he was innocent. 6 That we have 
 
 1 Varro, loc. ait.; Pliny, N. II, vii. § 14. Pliny has got it wrong 
 end on. He says that if the snakes did not leave the children they 
 were bastards. We may safely correct his statement by Varro's. 
 
 2 Revue d' Ethnographic, iii. p. 397. 
 
 3 Ellis, Hist, of Madagascar, i. p. 157. According to Mr Sibree, 
 this was only done with children born in the month Alakaosy {Folk- 
 Lore Rec, ii. 35 sq.). 
 
 4 Robinson, Descriptive Account of Assam, p. 342 sq. 
 
 5 Livingstone, South Africa, p. 255. 
 
 6 J. Canter Visscher, Letters from Malabar, p. 69. For an ordeal 
 
22 TOTEMISM. 
 
 here a relic of totemism appears not only from the worship 
 of snakes in the district, but also from the fact that, if a 
 dead cobra was found by the people, it was burned with 
 the same ceremonies as the body of a man of high caste. 1 
 Oaths were originally ordeals, and some of them are of 
 totem origin. The Crocodile clan of the Bechuanas swear 
 by the crocodile ; the Santals (or Sonthals), a totem tribe 
 of Bengal, are said to adore the tiger (which probably 
 means that the tiger is one of their totems), and to swear 
 on a tiger's skin is their most solemn oath. 2 
 
 But it is not enough that the totem should merely 
 abstain from injuring, he must positively benefit the men 
 who put their faith in him. The Snake clan (Ophiogenes) 
 of Asia Minor believed that if they were bitten by an 
 adder they had only to put a snake to the wound and 
 their totem would suck out the poison and soothe away 
 the inflammation and the pain. 3 Hence Omaha medicine- 
 men, in caring the sick, imitate the action and voice of 
 their (individual) totem. 4 Members of the Serpent clan in 
 Senegambia profess to heal by their touch persons who have 
 been bitten by serpents. 6 A similar profession was made 
 in antiquity by Snake clans in Africa, Cyprus, and Italy. 6 
 
 by crocodiles in Madagascar (where the crocodile is much reverenced), 
 see Folk-Lore Rec, ii. p. 35, cf. p. 21. 
 
 1 Vischer, op. cit., p. 162. For ordeal by snake-bite, cf. Asiatick 
 Researches, i. p. 391. 
 
 2 Dalton, Eth. of Ben., p. 214. For the Sonthal (Santal) totems, 
 see As. Quart. Rev. , July 1886, p. 76. For other oaths bearing strong 
 impress of a totem origin (swearing on a bear's skin, a lizard's skin, 
 earth of an ant hill, &c. ), see Dalton, op. cit., pp. 38, 158, 294. 
 
 3 Strabo, xiii. 1, 14. In Madagascar a god of healing was also, like 
 Aesculapius, a god of serpents ; his attendants carried living serpents 
 in their hands (Folk- Lore Rec. , ii. 20). 
 
 4 James, Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, i. p. 247. 
 
 5 Revue a" Ethnographic, iii. p. 396. 
 
 6 Pliny, N. H., xxviii. 30. 
 
 V 
 
TOTEMISM. 23 
 
 The Small Bird subolan of the Omahas, though ordinarily they 
 are forbidden to eat small birds, in sickness may eat prairie 
 chickens. 1 The Samoan clan whose totem was the ends of leaves 
 and of other things, though in ordinary life they might not use 
 them, were allowed and even required to fan a sick clansman with 
 the ends of cocoa-nut leaflets. 2 Members of the Sea-Weed clan in 
 Samoa, when they went to fight at sea, took with them some sea- 
 weed, which they threw into the sea to hinder the flight of the 
 enemy ; if the enemy tried to pick it up it sank, but rose again 
 when any of the Sea- Weed clan paddled up to it. 3 This resembles 
 the common incident in folk tales of magic obstacles thrown out 
 by fugitives to stay pursuit. 
 
 Again, the totem gives his clansmen important informa- 
 tion by means of omens. In the Coast Murring tribe of 
 New South Wales each man's totem warned him of com- 
 ing danger ; if his totem was a kangaroo, a kangaroo 
 would warn him against his foes. 4 The Kurnai in Victoria 
 reverence the crow as one of their ancestors, and think 
 that it watches over them and answers their questions by 
 cawing. 5 
 
 The Samoan totems gave omens to their clansmen. 
 Thus, if an owl flew before the Owl clan, as they 
 marched to war, it was a signal to go on ; but if it flew 
 across their path, or backwards, it was a sign to retreat. 6 
 Some kept a tame owl on purpose to give omens in war. 7 
 The appearance of the totem in or about the house was by 
 some clans regarded as an omen of death ; the totem had 
 
 1 Third Rep., 238. 3 Turner, Samoa, 70. 
 
 3 lb., p. 71. 4 /. A. L, xiii. 195»., xvi. 46. 
 
 * Id., xv. p. 415. 6 Turner, Samoa, 21, 24, 60. 
 
 7 lb., 25 sq. Other omens were drawn from the rainbow (ib., 21, 
 35), shooting star (21), species of fish (27), clouds (27), cuttle-fish 
 (29), herons (35), a creeper-bird (38), lizards (44, 47), a species of 
 bird (48), kingfishers (48, 54), dogs (49), bats (51), shark's teeth (55), 
 lightning (59 sq.), rail bird (61, 65), the bird called porphyris 
 Samoensis (64), eels (66), and centipedes (69). 
 
24 TOTEMISM. 
 
 come to fetch his kinsman. This was the case with land- 
 crabs and eels. 1 
 
 When the coiiduct of the totem is not all that his"] clansmen 
 could desire, they have various ways of putting pressure on him. 
 In harvest time, when the birds eat the corn, the Small Bird clan 
 of the Omahas take some corn which they chew and spit over the 
 field. This is thought to keep the birds from the crops. 2 If 
 worms infest the corn the Reptile clan of the Omahas catch some of 
 them and pound them up with some grains of corn which have been 
 heated. They make a soup of the mixture and eat it, believing that 
 the corn will not be infested again, at least for that year. 3 During 
 a fog the men of the Turtle subclan of the Omahas used to draw 
 the figure of a turtle on the ground with its face to the south. 
 On the head, tail, middle of the back, and on each leg were 
 placed small pieces of a red breech-cloth with some tobacco. This 
 was thought to make the fog disappear. 4 Another Omaha clan, 
 who are described as Wind people, "flap their blankets to start a 
 breeze which will drive off the mosquitoes." 5 
 
 It is more difficult to realize the relation between a man 
 and his totem when that totem is an inanimate object. 
 But such totems are rare. 
 
 In Australia we find: thunder (Encounter Bay tribe, S.Australia) 
 (Xat. Tr. S. Aust, 186), rain (Dieii, S. Australia) (J. A. 1., xii. 
 33)t), the star a Aquilse or Fomalhaut (Mukjarawaint, W. Victoria) 
 (Id., xii. 33re, xiii. 193»), hot wind and sun (Wotjoballuk, N. W. 
 Victoria) (Id., xvi. 31jj ; Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 
 
 1 Turner, ib., 66, 72. 
 
 2 Third Report, p. 238 sq. The idea perhaps is that the birds 
 eat in the persons of their clansmen, and give tangible evidence that 
 they have eaten their fill. But cf. Riedel, op. cit., p. 327. 
 
 3 Third Rep., 248. With this custom compare a Syrian superstition 
 When caterpillars invaded a vineyard or field the virgins were gathered 
 and one of the caterpillars was taken and a girl made its mother 
 Then they bewailed and buried it. Thereafter they conducted the 
 "mother" to the place where the caterpillars were, eonsolin°- h er 
 in order that all the caterpillars might leave the garden (La°arde' 
 Rcliquim juris Eeelesiastiei Antiqussimie, p. 135). Cf. Zeitschrifl 
 fiir Ethnologie, xv. p. 93 ; The People of Turlxy, by a Consul's 
 daughter and wife, ii. p. 247. 
 
 1 Third Rep., 240. 6 lb., 241. 
 
TOTEMISM. 25 
 
 1883, p. 818), honey. (Eamilaroi, N. S. Wales) (J. A. I., xii. 500), 
 and clear water (Kuin-Murbura, Queensland) (Id., xiii. 344). Flood- 
 water and lightning are names of what Messrs Fison and Howitt call 
 the two primary classes of the Kiabara tribe in Queensland (Id., 
 xiii. 336). As we shall see, they probably are or were totems. In 
 America we find ice (Punka totem) (Morgan, A. S., 155), thunder 
 (Omaha, Kaw, "Winnebago, Potawattamie, Sauk and Foxes) (ib., 
 155, 156, 157, 167, 170), earth (Kaw) (ib., 156), water (Minnitaree, 
 Miami, Moqui) (ib., 159, 168 ; Bourke, Snake Dance of the Moquis 
 of Arizona, 50, 117, 335), wind (Creek) (Morgan, op. cit., 161 ; 
 Adair, Hist. Amer. Indians, p. 15 ; Gatschet, Migration Legend of 
 the Creek Indians, i. p. 155), salt (Creek) (Morgan, loc. cit. ; Gatschet, 
 02). cit., i. 156), sun (Miami, Moqui) (Morgan, op. cit., 168 ; Bourke, 
 op. cit, 50, 117, 335 sq.), snow (Miami) (Morgan, loc. cit; cf. below, 
 p. 37), bone (Sauk and Foxes) (ib., 170), sea (Sauk and Foxes) (ib., 
 170), sand (Moqui) (ib., 179; Bourke, op. cit, 335), and rain (Moqui) 
 (Morgan, op. cit, 179). In Africa sun and rain are Damara 
 totems (Anderson, Lake Ngami, p. 221). In India one of the 
 constellations is a Santal (Sonthal) totem (As. Quart. Rev., July 
 1886, p. 76); and the foam of the river is an Oraon totem and not 
 to be eaten by the clansmen (Dalton in Tr. Mhnol. Soc, N. S., 
 vi. 36). In Samoa we have the rainbow, shooting star, cloud, 
 moon, and lightning (Turner, Samoa, 21, 27, 35, 53, 59, 67). 
 
 In a few cases colours are totems : thus red is an Omaha totem 
 (Morgan, A. S., p. 155), red paint and blue are Cherokee totems 
 (ib., 164), and vermilion is the name of a subdivision of the 
 Delawares (ib., 172; however, the nature of these subdivisions of 
 the three Delaware clans is not clear). This perhaps explains the 
 aversion which some tribes exhibit for certain colours. Thus red 
 was forbidden in one district of Mangaia (in the South Pacific) 
 because it was thought offensive to the gods (Gill, Myths and Song's 
 of the South Pacific, p. 29). Light yellow is a detestable colour to 
 a Hervey islander (ib., 227). The Yezidis abominate blue (Layard, 
 Nineveh, i. p. 300). 
 
 It is remarkable how small a part is played in totemism by the 
 heavenly bodies. In the lists of totems before us, the sun 
 occurs once in Australia, once in Africa, and several times in 
 America (besides Morgan and Bourke as above, cf. M'Lennan 
 in Fortn. Rev., October 1869, p. 413). The sun was the special 
 divinity of the chiefs of the Natchez, but that it was a totem is 
 not certain ; cf. Lafitau, Mceurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, i. 168 ; 
 Charlevoix, Hist de la Nouvelle France, vi. 177 sq.; Lett, fidif, 
 
26 TOTEMISM. 
 
 vii. 9 sq. ; Chateaubriand, Voyage en Amerique, 227 sq., ed. 12mo, 
 Michel Levy ; C. C. Jones, Antiquities of the Southern Indians, 
 p. 23) ; but a star or constellation appears only twice, and the 
 moon appears, with a doubtful exception in America (S. Hearne, 
 Journey from Prince of Wales Fort in Hudson's Bay to the 
 Northern Ocean, p. 148 ; it may have been an individual totem), 
 only in Samoa. 
 
 With regard to artificial totems, we are told generally that 
 Bengal totems include' artificial objects (As. Quart. Rev., July 
 1886, p. 75), and net is given as a Emmi totem (ib., 77). In 
 America, tent is a totem of the Eaws (Morgan, A. S., 156) ; ball of 
 the Onondaga Iroquois (ib., 91) ;* good knife of the Mandans (ib., 
 158); and knife, lodge, and bonnet of the Minnitarees (ib., 159). 
 Schoolcraft gives cord as a Huron (Wyandot) totem, but it is not 
 included in Morgan and Powell's lists of Huron totems (School- 
 craft, Ind. Tr., iv. 204; Morgan, op. cit., 153; First Rep. Bur. 
 Ethnol., p. 59). 
 
 In order, apparently, to put himself more fully under 
 the protection of the totem, the clansman is in the habit 
 of assimilating himself to the totem by dressing in the skin 
 or other part of the totem animal, arranging his hair and 
 mutilating his body so as to resemble the totem, and repre- 
 senting the totem on his body by cicatrices, tattooing, or 
 paint. The mental state thus revealed is illustrated by 
 the belief held by many North American Indians that they 
 have each an animal (bison, calf, tortoise, frog, bird, &c.) 
 in their bodies. 2 
 
 In going to battle the Minnitarees dress in wolf skins ; the skin 
 with the tail attached hangs down the back, the man's head is 
 inserted in a hole in the skin, and the wolfs head hangs down on 
 his breast. 3 Lewis and Clarke saw a Teton Indian wearing two or 
 
 1 But according to Mr Beauchanip (American Antiquarian, viii. p. 
 85) no such totem existed, and the mention of it is due to a misunder- 
 standing. 
 
 2 Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika, 
 ii. pp. 190, 270. 
 
 3 lb., ii. 224. The Minnitarees regard the wolf as especially strong 
 " medicine '' (ib.). This is the spirit, if not the letter, of totemism. 
 
TOTESIISM. 27 
 
 three raven skins fixed to the back of the girdle, with the tails 
 sticking out behind ; on his head he wore a raven skin split into 
 two parts and tied so as to let the beak project from the forehead. 1 
 Amongst the Thlinkets on solemn occasions, such as dances, 
 memorial festivals, and burials, individuals often appear disguised 
 in the full form of their totem animals ; and, as a rule, each clans- 
 man carries at least an easily recognisable part of his totem with 
 him. 2 Condor clans in Peru, who believed themselves descended 
 from the condor, adorned themselves with the feathers of the 
 bird. 3 
 
 The Iowa clans have each a distinguishing mode of dressing the 
 hair, e.g., the Buffalo clan wear two locks of hair in imitation of 
 horns. These modes of dressing the hair, however, are confined 
 to male children, who, as soon as they are grown, shave off all 
 the hair except the scalp-lock, with a fringe of hair surrounding 
 it. 4 Amongst the Omahas, the smaller boys of the Black Shoulder 
 (Buffalo) clan wear two locks of hair in imitation of horns. 5 The 
 Hanga clan of the Omahas (also a Buffalo clan) wear a crest of 
 hair about two inches long, standing erect and extending from ear 
 to ear ; this is in imitation of the back of a buffalo. 6 The Small 
 Bird clan of the Omahas " leave a little hair in front, over the 
 forehead, for a bill, and some at the back of the head, for the bird's 
 tail, with much over each ear for the wings." 7 The Turtle sub- 
 clan of the Omahas ' ' cut off all the hair from a boy's head, 
 except six locks ; two are left on each side, one over the forehead, 
 and one hanging down the back in imitation of the legs, head, and 
 tail of a turtle." 8 Amongst the Manganja in eastern Africa 
 " one trains his locks till they take the admired form of the 
 buffalo's horns ; others prefer to let their hair hang in a thick coil 
 down their backs, like that animal's tail." 9 
 
 The practice of knocking out the upper front teeth at puberty, 
 which prevails in Australia and elsewhere, is, or was once, probably 
 
 1 Lewis and Clarke, Travels to the Source of the Missouri River, i. 
 p. 123, London, 1815. 
 
 2 Holmberg in Acta Soc. Scient. Fennicw, iv. 293 sq., 328 ; Petroff, 
 Report on the Population, Industries, and Resources of Alaska, p. 
 166. 
 
 3 J. G. Mailer, Gesch. d. americanischen Urreligionen, p. 327. 
 
 4 Schoolcraft, lnd. Tr., iii. 269. 
 
 5 Third Rep., 229. 
 
 6 lb., 235. 7 lb., 238. 8 lb., 240. 
 
 9 Livingstone, Zambesi, p. 114. But it does not appear whether 
 this people have totems or not. 
 
28 TOTEMISM. 
 
 an imitation of the totem. The Batoka in Africa who adopt this 
 practice say that they do so in order to be like oxen, while those 
 who retain their teeth are like zebras. 1 The Manganja chip their 
 teeth to resemble those of the cat or crocodile. 2 It is remarkable 
 that among some Australian tribes who knock out one or two of the 
 upper front teeth of boys, the most prized ornaments of the women 
 are the two upper front teeth of the kangaroo or wallaby ; those 
 are tied together at the roots so as to form a V, and are worn in a 
 necklace or hung amongst the hair. 3 In other cases it is the boys' 
 teeth which the women wear round their necks. 4 
 
 The bone, reed, or stick which some Australiau tribes thrust 
 through their nose may be also an imitation of the totem. It is 
 not worn constantly, but is inserted when danger is apprehended ; 
 which perhaps means that the man then seeks most to assimilate 
 himself to his totem when he most needs the totem's protection. 5 
 Kurnai medicine-men could only communicate with the ghosts 
 when they had these bones in their noses. 6 
 
 The Haidas of Queen Charlotte Islands are universally tattooed, 
 the design being in all cases the totem, executed in a conventional 
 style. When several families of different totems live together in 
 the same large house, a Haida chief will have all their totems 
 tattooed on his person. 7 The Iroquois tattooed their totems on 
 their persons. 8 Mr E. James, a high authority on the North 
 
 1 Livingstone, South Africa, p. 532. 
 
 2 Id., Zambesi, p. 115. On the general custom of filing the teeth 
 among savages, see Zeitsclvrift filr Bthnologie, xiv. p. 213 sq. 
 
 3 Tr. Ethnol. Soc., new series, i. p. 287 sq. ; Jour, and Proc. 
 R. Soc. N. S. Wales, xvii. (1883) p. 26 ; cf. G. F. Angas, Savage 
 Life and Scenes in Austr. and New Zeal., i. pp. 92, 98; Eyre, 
 Jour., ii. p. 342. 
 
 4 Collins, A ccount cf the English Colony of N. S. Wales, London, 
 1798, p. 581. 
 
 5 T. L. Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of New South 
 Wales, ii. p. 339. 
 
 6 Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 253. 
 
 7 Geolog. Sun. of Canada, Rep. for 1878-79, pp. 108b, 135b ; 
 Smithsonian Contrib. to Enowl. , vol. xxi. No. 267, p. 3 sq. ; Nature, 
 20th January 1887, p. 285; Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of 
 Ethnology, Washington, 1886, p. 67 sq. How different the conven- 
 tional representation in tattooing may be from the true, we learn from 
 the Hindu tattoo marks (conventionally supposed to represent ducks, 
 geese, peacocks, &c. ) depicted by Major-General A. Cunningham in 
 his work, The Stupa of Bharut, plate lii. 
 
 8 E. de Schweinitz, Life and Times of David Zeisberger, p. 78. 
 
TOTEMISM. 29 
 
 American Indians, denies that it was a universal— from which 
 we infer that it was a common — practice with them to have their 
 totems tattooed on their persons. 1 Mackenzie says that the Ojib- 
 ways (Chippeways) are tattooed on their cheeks or forehead "to 
 distinguish the tribe to which they belong." 2 The Assinibois 
 (Assiniboels) tattooed figures of serpents, birds, &c. (probably 
 their totems) on their persons. 3 Tribes in South America are 
 especially distinguished by their tattoo marks, but whether these 
 are totem marks is not said. 4 The same applies to the natives 
 of Yule Island, 5 Eskimos of Alaska, 6 and Manganjas in Africa. 7 
 In one of the Hervey Islands (South Pacific) the tattooing was an 
 imitation of the stripes on two different species of fish, probably 
 totems. 8 The Australians do not tattoo but raise cicatrices ; in 
 some tribes these cicatrices are arranged in patterns which serve 
 as the tribal badges, oonsistings of lines, dots, circles, semicircles, 
 &c. 9 According to one authority, these Australian tribal badges 
 are sometimes representations of the totem. 10 For the cases in 
 which the women alone tattoo, see the note below. 11 
 
 1 James hi Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John 
 Tanner, p. 315. 
 
 2 A. Mackenzie, Voyages through the Continent of North America, 
 p. cxx. 
 
 3 Lettr. Edif., vi. 32. 
 
 4 Martius, Zur Ethnographic America's zumal Brasiliens, p. 55. 
 
 5 D'Albertis, New Guinea, i. p. 419. - 
 
 6 Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 48. 
 
 7 Livingstone, Last Journals, i. p. 110, cf. p. 125. 
 
 8 Gill, Myths and Songs of the S. Pacific, p. 95. 
 
 9 Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. p. xli. sq., 295, ii. 313 ; 
 Eyre, Journ., ii. 333, 335; Bidley, Kamilaroi, p. 140 ; Journ. and, 
 Proceed. JR. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1882, p. 201. 
 
 10 Mr Chatfield, in Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 
 66n. On tattooing in connexion with totemism, see Haberlandt in 
 Mittheil. der anthrop. Cesell. in Wien, xv. (1885) p. [53] sq. 
 
 11 Among most of the Galifornian tribes, the Ainos of Japan, the f 
 Chukchi in Siberia, and many of the aborigines of India, it is the women I 
 alone who are tattooed. See S. Powers, Tribes of California, p. 109 ;[ 
 Siebold, Ethnol. Stud, ueber die Ainos, p. 15 ; Scheube, Die Ainos, p. 
 6 ; Nordenskiold, Voyage of the Vega, p. 296, popular edition ; Dalton, 
 Ethnol. of Bengal, pp. 114, 157, 161, 219, 251. (Among the Nagas 
 of Upper Assam the men tattoo. Dalton, op. oil., p. 39 sq. ) Old 
 pioneers in California are of opinion that the reason why the women 
 alone tattoo is that in case they are taken captive they may be recog- 
 nized by their own people when opportunity serves. This idea, Mr 
 Powers says, is borne out by the fact that " the California Indians are 
 
30 TOTEMISM. 
 
 Again, the totem is sometimes painted on the person of the elans- 
 man. This, as we have seen (p. 8), is sometimes done by the 
 Indians of British Columbia. Among the Hurons (Wyandots) 
 each clan has a distinctive mode of painting the face, and, at least 
 in the ease of the chiefs at installation, this painting represents 
 the totem. 1 Among the Moquis the representatives of the clans at 
 foot-races, dances, &c. , have each a conventional representation of 
 his totem blazoned on breast or back. 2 A Pawnee, whose totem 
 was a buffalo head, is depicted by Catlin with a buffalo's head 
 clearly painted on his face and breast. 3 
 
 The clansman also affixes his totem mark as a signature 
 to treaties and other documents, 4 and paints or carves it 
 on his weapons, hut, canoe, &c. 
 
 Thus the natives of the upper Darling carve their totems on their 
 shields. 5 The Indians who accompanied Samuel Hearne on his 
 journey from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific painted their totems 
 (sun, moon, and diverse birds and beasts of prey) on their shields 
 before going into battle. 6 Some Indian tribes going to war carry 
 standards, consisting of representations of their totems drawn on 
 pieces of bark, which are elevated on poles. 7 Among the Thlinkets 
 shields, helmets, canoes, blankets, household furniture, and houses 
 are all marked with the totem, painted or carved. In single com- 
 bats between chosen champions of different Thlinket clans, each 
 
 rent into such infinitesimal divisions, any one of which may be 
 arrayed in deadly feud against another at any moment, that the slight 
 differences in their dialects would not suffice to distinguish the captive 
 squaws" (Powers, Tr. of Calif., p. 109). There may therefore be a 
 grain of truth in the explanation of tattooing given by the Khyen 
 women in Bengal ; they say that it was meant to conceal their beauty, 
 for which they were apt to be carried off by neighbouring tribes 
 {Asiatic Researches, xvi. p. 268 ; Dalton, op. cit., p. 114). 
 
 1 First Rep., pp. 62, 64. 
 
 2 Bourke, Snake Dance, p. 229. 
 
 3 Catlin, N. Amer. Ind., ii. plate 140. 
 
 4 Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 247. 
 
 6 Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. pp. xlii. 284. 
 
 6 S. Hearne, Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 148 sq. These 
 however, may have been individual totems. Some of the Indians had 
 many such figures on their shields. 
 
 7 Chateaubriand, Voy. en Amer., pp. 194, 199, 224; Charlevoix, 
 Hist, de la Nouv. Fr. , v. p. 329. 
 
TOTEMISM. 31 
 
 wears a helmet representing his totem. 1 In front of the houses of 
 the chiefs and leading men of the Haidas are erected posts carved 
 with the totems of the inmates. As the houses sometimes contain 
 several families of different totems, the post often exhibits a 
 number of totems, carved one above the other. 2 Or these carvings ^ 
 one above the other represent the paternal totems in the female 
 line, which, descent being in the female line, necessarily change 
 from generation to generation. 3 The coast Indians of British 
 Columbia carve their totems on the beams which support the 
 roof's of their lodges, paint them over the entrance, and paint 
 or carve them on their paddles and canoes. * The Pawnees mark 
 their huts and even articles of apparel with their totems. 5 The 
 Delawares (Lenape) painted their totems on their houses. The 
 Turtle clan painted a whole turtle ; but the Turkey clan painted only 
 a foot of a turkey ; and the Wolf clan only one foot of a wolf, though 
 they sometimes added an outline of the whole animal. 6 In the 
 Ottawa villages the different clans had separate wards, at the gates 
 of which were posts bearing the figure of the clan totem or of parts of 
 it. 7 The Omaha clans paint their totems on their tents. 8 Amongst 
 the Iroquois the totem sign over each wigwam consisted, at least in 
 some cases, of the skin of the totem animal, as of a beaver, a deer, 
 a bear. 9 Sometimes the skin is stuffed and stuck on a pole before 
 the door. 10 Lastly, the totem is painted or carved on the clansman's 
 tomb or grave-post, the figure being sometimes reversed to denote 1 ^ 
 death. It is always the Indian's totem name, not his personal 
 
 1 Holmberg in Acta Soe. So. Fennicm, iv. 294, 323 ; AurelKrause, 
 Vie Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 130 sq. ; Petroff, Report on Alaska, pp. 166, 
 170. 
 
 2 Smithsonian Contrib. to Knowl., xxi, No. 267, p. 3 sq. ; Geol. 
 Surv. of Canada, Rep. for 1878-79, p. 148b; Ausland, 6 October % 
 1884, p. 794; Id., 7 September 1885, p. 701. Totem-posts, 50 to 
 100 feet high, in front of nearly every Thlinket house (Petroff, Report 
 on Alaska, p. 165; Krause, I.e. ; Sheldon Jackson, Alaska, p. 78). 
 
 3 American Antiquarian, ii. p. 110; Sheldon Jackson, Alaska, 
 p. 81. 
 
 4 Mayne, Brit. Columb., p. 257 sq. 
 
 5 Magazine of American History, iv. p. 260. 
 
 6 Heckewelder, op. cit., p. 247; Brinton, The Lenape and their 
 Legends, p. 39 sq. , 68 sq. 
 
 7 Acad., 27th Sept. 1884, p. 203. 
 
 8 Third Rep., 229, 240, 248. 
 
 9 Second Rep., p. 78. 
 
 10 E. I. Dodge, Our Wild Indians (Hartford, Conn., 1882), p. 
 225. 
 
32 TOTEMISM. 
 
 name, which is thus recorded. 1 Sometimes the stuffed skin of the 
 totem is hung over the grave, or is placed at the dead man's side. 2 
 
 The identification of a man with his totem appears 
 further to have been the object of various ceremonies 
 observed at birth, marriage, death, and other occasions. 
 
 Birth Ceremonies. — On the fifth day after birth a child 
 of the Deer-Head clan of the Omahas is painted with red 
 spots on its back, in imitation of a fawn, and red stripes 
 are painted on the child's arms and chest. All the Deer- 
 Head men present at the ceremony make red spots on their 
 chests. 3 When a South Slavonian woman has given birth 
 to a child, an old woman runs out of the house and calls 
 out, " A she-wolf has littered a he-wolf," and the child is 
 drawn through a wolfskin, as if to simulate actual birth 
 from a wolf. Further, a piece of the eye and heart of a 
 wolf are sewed into the child's shirt, or hung round its 
 neck ; and if several children of the family have died 
 "* before, it is called Wolf. The reason assigned for some of 
 these customs is, that the witches who devour children 
 will not attack a wolf. 4 In other words, the human child 
 
 disguised as a wolf to cheat its supernatural foes. /The 
 same desire for protection against supernatural danger 
 may be the motive of similar totemic customs, if not of 
 \totemism in general. The legend of the birth of Zamolxis 
 
 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tr., i. p. 356 sq., ii. 49, v. 73; A. Mackenzie, 
 Voyages, &c, pp. xcix, 316; J. Dunn, Hist, of the Oregon Territory, 
 p. 94; Mayne, Br. Columb., pp. 258, 271; A. Krause, Die Tlinkit- 
 Indianer, p. 230; American Antiquarian, ii. p. 112. It has "been 
 conjectured that the animal-shaped mounds in the Mississippi valley 
 (chiefly in the State of Wisconsin) are representations of totems 
 [American Antiquarian, iii. p. 7 sq.; vi. pp. 8, 326 sq.). 
 
 2 Dodge, op. cit., pp. 158, 225. 
 
 3 Third Rep., p. 245 sq. 
 
 4 Krauss, Sitte und Branch der Siidslaven, p. 541 sq. 
 
TOTEMISM. 33 
 
 (it is said that he was so called because a bearskin was 
 thrown over him at birth ] ) points to a custom of wrap- 
 ping infants at birth in a bearskin, and this again perhaps 
 to a bear totem. The belief of the Getae that their 
 dead went to Zamolxis would thus be the totemic view 
 that the dead clansman is changed into his totem. When 
 a Hindu child's horoscope portends misfortune or crime, 
 he is born again from a cow, thus : being dressed in 
 scarlet and tied on a new sieve, he is passed between the 
 hind legs of a cow forward through the fore legs to the 
 mouth and again in the reverse direction, to simulate birth; 
 the ordinary birth ceremonies (aspersion, &c.) are then 
 gone through, and the father smells his son as a cow smells 
 her calf. 2 In India grown persons also may be born again 
 by passing through a golden cow in simulation of birth ; 
 this is done when, e.g., they have polluted themselves by 
 contact with unbelievers. 3 
 
 Marriage Ceremonies. — Among the Kalang of Java, v 
 whose totem is the red dog, bride and bridegroom before 
 marriage are rubbed with the ashes of a red dog's bones. 1 
 Among the Transylvanian gypsies, bride and bridegroom 
 are rubbed with a weasel skin. 5 The sacred goatskin 
 (aegis) which the priestess of Athene took to newly 
 
 1 Porphyry, Vit. Pyfhag., 14. On the etymology of Zamolxis and 
 the possible identity of — olxis with the Greek &pKTOs, Latin ursus, 
 "a bear," see V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere, p. 450. 
 
 2 Jmur. Asiat. Soc. Beng., liii. (1884) pt. i. p. 101. 
 
 3 Asiatick Researches, vi. p. 535 sq. ; Liebrecht, Gervasiusvon Til- 
 bury, p. 171 ; Id., Zur Volkskunde, p. 397. For an Ojibway birth 
 ceremony, cf. P. Jones, Hist, of Ojebway Indians, p. 160, cf. p. 138. 
 
 4 Raffles, Hist, of Java, i. 328. On rubbing with ashes as a 
 religious ceremony, cf. Spencer, De legibus Hebrseorum ritualibus, 
 vol. ii. Diss. iii. Lib. iii. cap. 1. 
 
 6 Original- Mittheil. aus der ethnolog. Abtheil. der Kbnigl. Museen 
 m Berlin, i. p. 156. 
 
 C 
 
34 TOTEMISM. 
 
 married women may have been used for this purpose. 1 
 At Eome bride and bridegroom sat down on the skin of 
 the sheep which had been sacrificed on the occasion. 2 An 
 Italian bride smeared the doorposts of her new home with 
 wolf's fat. 3 It is difficult to separate from totemism the 
 custom observed by totem clans in Bengal of marrying the 
 bride and bridegroom to trees before they are married to 
 each other. The bride touches with red lead (a common 
 marriage ceremony) a mahwa tree, clasps it in her arms, 
 and is tied to it. The bridegroom goes through a like 
 ceremony with a mango tree. 4 
 
 Traces of marriage to trees are preserved in Servia. The bride 
 is led to an apple-tree (apples often appear in South Slavonian 
 marriage customs) under which stands a pitcher full of water. 
 Money is thrown into the pitcher ; the bride's veil is taken from 
 her and fastened to the tree ; she upsets the pitcher of water with 
 her foot; and a, dance three times round the tree concludes the 
 ceremony. 6 Tree marriage appears very distinctly in the Greek 
 festival of the Daedala, at which an oak tree, selected by special 
 divination, was cut down, dressed as a bride, and conveyed, like a 
 bride, in solemn procession on a waggon with a bridesmaid beside 
 it. The mythical origin of the festival was a mock marriage of 
 Zeus to an oak. 6 The identification with a tree, implied in these 
 
 1 Suidas, s.v. , alyis. 
 
 2 Servius on Virgil, Aen., iv. 374; Festus, s.v. In pelle. 
 
 3 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxviii. 142. 
 
 4 Dalton, Ethn. of Bengal, p. 194 (Mundas), p. 319 (Kurmis). 
 Among the Mundas both bride and bridegroom are sometimes married 
 to mango trees. For Kurmi totems, see As. Quart. Rev., July 1886 
 p. 77. 
 
 5 Krauss, S&dsl, p. 450. With regard to upsetting the pitcher, it 
 is to be noted that water is an important element in marriage cere- 
 monies, e.g., among the same Mundas who are married to trees a 
 pitcher of water is poured over both bride and bridegroom (Dalton, 
 op. cit., 194). Two cabbages, one from the garden of the bride and 
 another from that of the bridegroom, play a very important part in 
 rural weddings in Lorraine (George Sand, La Mare au Diable, append. 
 
 v.; Folk-Lore Ree., iii. p. 271 sq. ). 
 
 6 Pausanias, ix. 3 ; Eusebius, Praep. Evang. , iii. 1 and 2. The oak 
 was especially associated with Zeus. See Botticher, Der Baumkvttus 
 
TOTEMISM. 35 
 
 marriage ceremonies, is illustrated by a Kicara custom. Ricara 
 Indians used to make a hole in the skin of their neck, pass a string 
 through it, and tie the other end to the trunk of an oak tree; by 
 remaining tied in this fashion for some time, they thought they 
 became strong and brave like the tree. 1 
 
 The idea of substitution or disguise, which seems to be at the 
 root of these marriage (as of the birth) ceremonies, appears in some 
 Hindu marriages. Thus when a man has lost several wives in 
 succession, he.must marry a bird with all ceremony before another 
 family will give him their daughter to wife. 2 Or wishing to 
 marry a third wife, whether his other wives are alive or not, he 
 must first formally wed a plant of a particular kind. 3 "When the 
 planets threaten any one with misfortune in marriage, he or she is 
 married to an earthen vessel. 4 Dancing girls of Goa are married 
 to daggers before they may exereise their profession. 5 Courtesans 
 born of courtesans are married to flowering plants, which are planted 
 in the house for the purpose ; they water and tend the plants, and 
 observe mourning for them when they die. 6 
 
 Some cases of marriage of human beings to inanimate objects 
 seem to be unconnected with totemism. 7 A totemic marriage 
 
 der Hellenen, p. 408 sq. The oak of Zeus (like a totem) gave omens 
 to its worshippers ; and the ceremony of making rain by means of an 
 oak branch (Paus., viii. 38) is remarkably like ceremonies observed for 
 the purpose of making rain by the sacred Buffalo society among the 
 Omahas (Third Rep., p. 347) and by a set of worshippers in totem- 
 riddeD Samoa (Turner, Samoa, p. 45). 
 
 1 Lewis and Clarke, i. p. 155, 8vo, 1835. 
 
 2 Indian Antiquary, x. p. 333. 
 
 3 Ind. Antiq., iv. p. 5 ; Jour. Asint. Soc. Bengal, liii. pt. i. p. 
 99 sq. 4 J. A. S. Beng., liii. i. p. 300. 
 
 5 Ind. Antiq., xiii. p. 168 sq. 
 
 6 Ind. Antiq., ix. p. 77. We are reminded of the Gardens of 
 Adonis. See W. Mannhardt, Antilce Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 279 sq. 
 
 7 Thus in Java the man who taps a palm for palm wine goes through 
 a form of marriage with the tree before he begins to tap it (Wilken 
 in De Indische Gids, June 1884, p. 963, of. 962). The Hurons 
 annually married their fishing nets, with great ceremony, to two young 
 girls (Relations des Jlsuites, 1636, p. 109 ; ib. , 1639, p. 95 ; Charle- 
 voix, Hist, de la Noun. Fr., v. p. 225 ; Chateaubriand, Voy. en 
 Ainer., p. 1'40 sq. ; Parkman, Jesuites of North America, p. lxix.). 
 The old Egyptian custom, in time of drought, of dressing a woman 
 as a bride and throwing her into the Nile is the subject of Ebers's novel 
 Nilbraut, noticed in the Atlienasum, July 2, 1887, p. 12. The. custom 
 seems to be the foundation of legends like those of Andromeda and 
 Hesione. For a Norse Andromeda, see Asbjtirnsen og Moe, Norshe 
 
36 TOTEMISM, 
 
 ceremony of a different kind is that] observed by a Tiger clan of 
 the Gonds, in which two men imitate tigers by tearing to pieces a 
 living kid with their teeth. 1 
 
 ■J Death Ceremonies. — In death, too, the clansman seeks 
 to become one with his totem. Amongst some totem 
 clans it is an article of faith that as the clan sprang from 
 the totem, so each clansman at death reassumes the totem! 
 form. Thus the Moquis, believing that the ancestors of 
 the clans were respectively rattlesnakes, deer, bears, sand, 
 water, tobacco, &c, think that at death each man, accord- 
 ing to his clan, is changed into a rattlesnake, a deer, &c. 2 
 Amongst the Black Shoulder (Buffalo) clan of the Omahas 
 a dying clansman was wrapped in a buffalo robe with the 
 hair out, his face was painted with the clan mark, and his 
 friends addressed him thus : " You are going to the 
 animals (the buffaloes). You are going to rejoin your 
 ancestors. You are going, or your four souls are going, 
 to the four winds. Be strong." 8 Amongst the Hanga 
 
 Follce-Eventyr (First Series), No. 24 (Dasent's Tales from the Norse, 
 p. 125 sq. ). The custom shadowed forth in these legends may be 
 only another form of the Egyptian customs referred to by Pindar (in 
 Strabo, xvii. 1, 19 — the full passage is omitted in some MSS. and 
 editions; cf. jElian, Nat. An., vii. 19; Herodotus, ii. 46; Plutarch, 
 Brut. Rat. Uti, 5 ; Clemens Alex., Protr., 32 ; and of which a trace 
 appears in Italy (Ovid, Fast. , ii. 441). This would bring us round to 
 totemism. It is therefore notable that the Andromeda story occurs in 
 Senegambia, where totemism exists. See Berenger-Feraud, Contes 
 populaires de la Senegambia, p. 185 sq. The Mandan custom (Catlin, 
 O-Kee-pa, Fol. reserv. , ii. ) is hardly parallel, though Liebrecht (Zur 
 Volkskunde, p. 395) seems to think so. 
 
 1 Dalton, op. cit, p. 280. 
 
 2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tr., iv. 86. 
 
 3 Third Rep., p. 229. As to the "four souls," many savages are 
 much more liberally provided with souls than civilized men. See 
 Rel. des JSs., 1636, p. 133; Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Nord- 
 Amerika, ii. 206; Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouv. Fr., vi. p. 75; 
 Laborde, "Eel. de l'origine, &c, des Caraibes," p. 15, in Recueil de 
 divers Voyages faits en Afrique et en VAmerique (Paris, 1684) ; 
 
TOTEMISM. 37 
 
 clan, another Buffalo clan of the Omahas, the ceremony 
 was similar, and the dying man was thus addressed : 
 " You came hither from the animals, and you are going 
 back thither. Do not face this way again. When you 
 go, continue walking." 1 
 
 Members of the Elk clan among the Omahas, though in life they 
 may not touch any part of a male elk nor taste of a male deer, are 
 buried in moccasins of deer skin. 2 Egyptian queens were some- 
 times buried in cow-shaped sarcophaguses. 3 Among the Australian 
 "Wotjoballuk, men of the Hot- Wind totem are buried with the head 
 in the direction from which the hot wind blows, and men of the 
 Sun totem are buried with their heads towards the sunrise.'' Among 
 the Marias, a Gond clan whose name is thought to be derived from 
 Mara, "a tree," the corpse of an adult male is fastened by cords to 
 a mahwa tree in an erect position and then burned. 5 On the anni- 
 versary of the death of their kinsmen, the Natavanes in Paraguay 
 carried dead ostriches in procession as representatives of the 
 deceased, probably because the ostrich was the clan totem. 6 Men 
 of the Snow totem among the Pouteoiiatmi, contrary to the general 
 custom of the tribe, were burned instead of buried, the belief being 
 that, as snow comes from on high, so the bodies of men of the Snow 
 totem should not be poked away underground, but suffered to rejoin 
 their Sn"ow kindred in the upper air. Once when a man of the 
 Snow totem had been buried underground, the winter was so long 
 and the snow fell so deep that nobody ever thought to see spring 
 any more. Then they bethought them of digging up the corpse 
 and burning it ; and lo ! the snow stopped falling and spring came 
 with a burst. 7 
 
 Washington Matthews, The Hidatsa Indians, p. 50 ; Macpherson, 
 Memorials of Service in India, p. 91 sq. ; Schoolcraft, Am. Ind., 
 pp. 127, 204; Id., Ind. Tr., iv. 70; Arctic Papers for the Expe- 
 dition of 1875, p 275 ; Williams, Fiji, i. p. 241 ; Wilken, " Het 
 animisme bij cle volken van den indischen archipel," in Ind. Gids, 
 June 1884, p. 929 sq. ; Id., Veber das Haaropfer, p. 75». 
 1 Third Rep., p. 233. 2 lb., 225. 
 
 3 Lepsius, Chronologie der Aegypter, p. 309m. ; cf. Herodotus, ii. 
 129; Stephanus Byzant, s.v., Boiaipis. 
 
 4 J. A. I, xvi. p. 31». 
 
 5 Dalton, Ethn. ofBeng., pp. 278, 283. 
 
 6 Charlevoix, Hist, du Paraguay, i. p. 462. 
 
 7 Bel. des Jes., 1667, p. 19; iettr'. Edif, vi. 169 sq. 
 
38 TOTEMISM. 
 
 \J Ceremonies at Puberty. — The attainment of puberty is 
 celebrated by savages with, ceremonies, some of which seem 
 to be directly connected with totemism. The Australian 
 rites of initiation at puberty include the raising of these 
 scars on the persons of the clansmen and clanswomen which 
 serve as tribal badges or actually depict the totem. They 
 also include those mutilations of the person by knocking out 
 teeth, &c, which we have seen reason to suppose are meant 
 to assimilate the man to his totem. "When we remember 
 that the fundamental rules of totem society are rules re- 
 gulating marriage, or rather sexual intercourse, and that 
 these rules are based on distinctions of totem, persons of 
 the same totem being forbidden, under pain of death, to 
 have connexion with each other, the propriety of imprint- 
 ing these marks on the persons of the clansmen and of 
 inculcating these rules on their minds at the very moment 
 when transgression of these all-important rules first 
 becomes possible, is immediately apparent ; and the 
 necessity for such marks will further appear when we 
 consider the minute subdivision of savage tribes into local 
 groups, which, at once united and divided by an elaborate 
 code of sexual permissions and prohibitions, are at the 
 same time disjoined by a difference of dialect or even of 
 language, such as, in the absence of some visible symbol- 
 ism, must have rendered all these permissions and pro- 
 hibitions inoperative. On this view, a chief object of 
 these initiation ceremonies was to teach the youths with 
 whom they might or might not have connexion, and to put 
 them in possession of a visible language, consisting of per- 
 sonal marks and (as we shall see immediately) gestures, by 
 means of which they might be able to communicate their 
 
TOTEMISM. 39 
 
 totems to, and to ascertain the totems of, strangers whose 
 language they did not understand. So far, the considera- 
 tion of these ceremonies would fall naturally under the 
 section dealing with the social side of totemism. But as 
 the rules which it is an object of these ceremonies to 
 inculcate are probably deductions from that fundamental 
 and as yet unexplained connexion between a man and his 
 totem, which constitutes the religion of totemism, they 
 may fairly be considered here. 
 
 That lessons in conduct, especially towards the other 
 sex, form part of these initiatory rites is certain. The 
 youth is charged " to restrict himself to the class (totem 
 division) which his name confines him to. . . . The secrets 
 of the tribe are imparted to him at this time. These 
 instructions are repeated every evening while the Bora 
 ceremony lasts, and form the principal part of it." 1 To 
 supply the youth with a gesture language for the purpose 
 already indicated may be the intention of the totem dances 
 or pantomimes which form part of the initiatory rites. 
 
 E.g., at one stage of these rites in Australia a number of 
 men appear on the scene howling and running on all fours in 
 imitation of the dingo or native Australian dog ; at last the leader 
 jumps up, clasps his hands, and shouts the totem name "wild 
 dog." 2 The Coast Murring tribe in New South Wales had an 
 initiatory ceremony at which the totem name "brown snake" was 
 shouted, and a medicine-man produced a live brown snake out of 
 his mouth. 3 The totem elans of the Bechuanas have each its 
 
 1 J. A. L, xiii. 296, cf. 450. 
 
 2 J. A. I., xiii. 450. 
 
 3 lb., xvi. p. 43. At the initiatory rites of the Phrygian god 
 Sabazius, a snake (or a golden image of one) was drawn through the 
 novice's robe. Arnobius, Adv. Nat., v. 21; Firmicus Maternus, De 
 errore pro/an. relig., 10 ; Clem. Alex., Protrept., § 16. Cf. Demosth., 
 p. 313 (De Corona, § 260) ; Strab., x. 3, 18. See Foucart, Des Asso- 
 ciations religieuses chez les Grecs, p. 66 sq. 
 
40 TOTEMISM. 
 
 special dance or pantomime, and when they wish to ascertain a 
 stranger's clan, they ask him " What do you dance ? " 1 We find 
 elsewhere that dancing has been used as a means of sexual selec- 
 tion. Thus among the Tshimsians, one of the totem tribes on the 
 north-west coast of North America, one of the ceremonies observed 
 by a, girl at puberty is a formal dance before all the people. 2 
 Amongst the Kasias in Bengal, amongst whom husband and wife 
 are always of different clans, Kasia maidens dance at the new moon 
 in March ; the young men do not dance but only look on, and 
 many matches are made at these times. 3 On the 15th day of the 
 month Abh the damsels of Jerusalem, clad in white, used to go out 
 and dance in the vineyards, saying, " Look this way, young man, 
 and choose a wife. Look not to the face but rather to the family. " i 
 Attic maidens between the ages of five and ten had to pretend to 
 be bears ; they were called bears, and they imitated the action of 
 bears. No man would marry a girl who had not thus "been a 
 bear." 5 
 
 The totem dances at initiation are to be distinguished from those 
 animal dances, also practised at initiation, the object of which 
 appears to be to give the novice power over the animals represented. 
 Thus an initiatory ceremony in New South Wales is to present to 
 the novices the effigy of a kangaroo made of grass. ' ' By thus 
 presenting to them the dead kangaroo, it was indicated that the 
 power was about to be imparted to them of killing that animal." 
 The men then tied tails of grass to their girdles and hopped about 
 
 1 Livingstone, South Africa, p. 13 ; J. Mackenzie, Ten Tears 
 North of the Orange River, p. 391, cf. p. 135m; J. A. I., xvi. p. 
 83. 
 
 2 Qeol. Sun. of Canada, Report for 1878-79, p. 131b ; for the 
 Tshimsian totems, ib., 134b. 
 
 3 Tr. JSth. Soo. , new series, vii. 309 ; for Kasia exogamy, Dalton, 
 Ethn. of Beng., p. 56. 
 
 4 Mishna, Tdanith, iv. 8 (Surenhus., ii. p. 385). 
 
 5 Schol. on Aristophanes, Lysist., 645; Harpocration, s.v. ipicr- 
 tvtrai ; Siridas, s.v. apKTev&at and &pnros ^ fipavpwviois ; Bekker's 
 Anecd. Or., p. 206, 4 ; ii., 444, 30. This sacred dance or pantomime 
 was a dedication of the damsels to either the Brauronian or Munychian 
 Artemis ; and legend said that a tame bear had been kept in her 
 sanctuary. The Arcadian Artemis, as K. 0. Miiller says (Dorier 2 
 i. p. 376), appears to be identical with Callisto ; and Callisto was the 
 ancestress of the Arcadians ( = Bear people, from &pKos, another form 
 of UpKTos), was herself turned into a bear, and was represented seated 
 on a bearskin (Paus., x. 31, 10). For an African example, see 
 Dapper, Description de I'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686), p. 249. 
 
TOTEMISM. 41 
 
 in imitation of kangaroos, while two others followed them with 
 spears and pretended to wound them. 1 An imitation of a wallaby 
 hunt forms another Australian initiatory ceremony. 2 These hunt- 
 ing dances, or rather pantomimes, at initiation are therefore closely 
 similar to those pantomimes which savage hunters perform before 
 going to the chase, believing that through a sort of sympathetic 
 magic the game will be caught like the actors in the mimic hunt. 
 Thus, before the Eoossa Caffres go out hunting one of them takes 
 a handful of grass in his mouth and crawls about on all fours to 
 represent the game, while the rest raise the hunting cry and rush 
 at him with their spears till he falls apparently dead. 3 Negros of 
 western equatorial Africa, before setting out to hunt the gorilla, 
 act a gorilla hunt, in which the man who plays the gorilla pretends 
 to be killed. 4 
 
 Before hunting the bear the Dacotas act a bear pantomime, in 
 which a medicine-man dresses entirely in the skin of a bear, and 
 others wear masques consisting of the skin of the bear's head, and 
 all of them imitate bears. 5 When buffaloes are scarce, the Mandans 
 dance wearing the skins of buffaloes' heads with the horns on their 
 heads. 6 " Each hunt," says Chateaubriand, "has its dance, which 
 consists in the imitation of the movements, habits, and cries of the 
 animal to be hunted ; they climb like a bear, build like a beaver, 
 galop about like a buffalo, leap like a roe, and yelp like a fox." 7 
 The Indians of San Juan Capistrano acted similar hunting panto- 
 mimes before the stuffed skin of a coyote or of a mountain cat before 
 they set out for the chase. 8 The ancient Greeks had similar 
 dances for the purpose of catching beasts and birds. Thus a man 
 wearing a headdress or necklace in imitation of a species of owl 
 mimicked the bird and was supposed thus to catch it. 9 Such 
 
 1 Collins, Account of the English Colony of New South Wales, 
 London, 1798, pp. 569, 571 ; Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in 
 Australia and New Zealand, ii. p. 219. 
 
 2 /. A. I., xiii. p. 449. 
 
 3 Lichtenstein, Travels in S. Afr., i. p. 269. 
 
 4 W. W. "Beade, Savage Africa, p. 194 sq. 
 
 Catlin, Amer. Indians, i. p. 245. Cf. Schoolcraft, Ind. Tr., iv. 
 60; the Dacotas " pretend to charm some kinds of animals by mimick- 
 ing them, and sometimes succeed in killing game in this way. " 
 
 6 Catlin, op. cit., i. 127. Cf. Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Nord- 
 Amerika, ii. p. 263 sq. 
 
 7 Chateaubriand, Voy. en Amer., p. 142 sq. 
 
 8 Bancroft, Nat. Races of the Pac. St., iii. p. 167. 
 
 9 Julius Pollux, iv. 103 ; Aelian, N. A., xv. 28 ; Athenaeus, 391a&, 
 629/. 
 
42 TOTEMISM. 
 
 pantomimes, acted, in presence of the animal, may be entirely 
 rational, as in the common cases where the savage disguises himself 
 in the animal's skin and is thus enabled either to act as a decoy to 
 the herd 1 or to approach and kill the animal. 2 But these panto- 
 mimes, when they are acted before the hunt takes place, are of 
 j/ course purely magical. 3 
 
 But in these rites of initiation the religious aspect of 
 totemism is also prominent. In some of the dances this 
 is certainly the case. Thus at their initiatory rites the 
 Yuin tribe in New South Wales mould figures of the 
 totems in earth and dance before them, and a medicine- 
 man brings up out of his inside the " magic " appropriate 
 to the totem before which he stands : before the figure of 
 the porcupine he brings up a stuff like chalk, before the 
 kangaroo a stuff like glass, <fec* Again, it is at initiation 
 that the youth is solemnly forbidden to eat of certain foods ; 
 but as the list of foods prohibited to youths at puberty both, 
 in Australia and America extends far beyond the simple 
 totem, it would seem that we are here in contact with those 
 unknown general ideas of the savage, whereof totemism 
 
 1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tr., iv. 93. 
 
 2 E.g., American Naturalist, iv. 136 sq. ; American Antiquarian, 
 viii. 328. Iroquois hunters wore skeleton frameworks of wood over 
 which they threw the skin of whatever animal they wished to imitate. 
 J. A. I., xiv. p. 246. 
 
 3 For other examples of animal dances or pantomimes (some of them 
 apparently merely recreations) see Schoolcraft, Ind. Tr. , v. p. 277 ; 
 Catlin, Amer. Ind., ii. 126, 248 ; Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Nord- 
 Amerika, ii. p. 246 ; S. Powers, Tr. of Calif., p. 199 sq.; Bancroft, 
 Nat. Races of the Pac. St., i. p. 706; Rep. of Internat. Polar 
 Exped. to Point Barrow, Alaska, p. 41 sq. ; E. James, Exped. to the 
 Rocky Mountains, ii. 58 ; American Antiquarian, vii. p. 211 ; A. 
 R. Wallace, Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, p. 296 sq. ; 
 Revue d' Ethnographic, vi. (1887) p. 54; Balton, Ethn. of Beng., 
 p. 155 sq. ; Pallas, Reise durch verschiedene Theile des russischen 
 Reichs, iii. p. 64 sq. ; Anderson, Lake Ngami, p. 230 ; Original- 
 Mittheil. aus der ethnolog. Abth. der Eonigl. Museen zu Berlin, i. p. 
 179 sq., 184; Eyre, Journals, ii. p. 233. 
 
 4 Journ. and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1882, p. 206. 
 
TOTEMISM. 43 
 
 is only a special product. Thus the Narrinyeri youth at 
 initiation are forbidden to eat twenty different kinds of 
 game, besides any food belonging to women. If they eat 
 of these forbidden foods it is thought they will grow ugly. 1 
 In the Mycoolon tribe, near the Gulf of Carpentaria, the 
 youth at initiation is forbidden to eat of eaglehawk and its 
 young, native companion and its young, some snakes, 
 turtles, ant-eaters, and emu eggs. 2 In New South Wales the 
 young men at initiation are forbidden to kill and eat (1) 
 " any animal that burrows in the ground, for it recalls to 
 mind the foot-holes s where the tooth was knocked out, e.g., 
 the wombat ; (2) such creatures as have very prominent 
 teeth, for these recall the tooth itself ; (3) any animal 
 that climbs to the tree tops, for they are then near to 
 Daramulun, 4 e.g., the native bear ; (4) any bird that 
 swims, for it recalls the final washing ; (5) nor, above 
 all, the emu, for this is Ngalalbal, the ..wife of Daramuliin, 
 and at the same time ' the woman ' ; for the novice during 
 his probation is not permitted even so much as to look at 
 a woman or to speak to one ; and even, for some time 
 after, he must cover his mouth with his rug when one is 
 present." These rules are relaxed by degrees by an old 
 man giving the youth a portion of the forbidden animal 
 or rubbing him with its fat. 6 The Kurnai youth is not 
 allowed to eat the female of any animal, nor the emu, nor 
 
 1 Nat. Tribes of S. Austral., p. 17. 
 
 2 /. A. I., xiii. p. 295. 
 
 3 Amongst these tribes the novice is placed with his feet in a pair 
 of holes preparatorily to the knocking out of the tooth (/. A. I., 
 xiii. p. 446 sq. ; ib., xiv. p. 359; Journ. and Proc. H. Soc. N. S. 
 Wales, 1883, p. 26). 
 
 4 I.e., the mythical being "who is supposed to have instituted these 
 ceremonies (/. A. I., xiii. 442, 446). 
 
 * J. A. I., xiii. p. 455 sq. 
 
44 TOTEMISM. 
 
 the porcupine. He becomes free by having the fat of the 
 animal smeared on his face. 1 On the other hand, it is 
 said that " initiation confers many privileges on the youths, ' 
 as they are now allowed to eat many articles of food which 
 were previously forbidden to them." 2 Thus in New South 
 Wales before initiation a boy may eat only the females of 
 the animals which he catches ; but after initiation (which, 
 however, may not be complete for several years) he may 
 eat whatever he finds. 3 About the lower Murray boys 
 before initiation are forbidden to eat emu, wild turkey, 
 swan, geese, black duck, and the eggs of these birds ; if 
 they infringed this rule, "their hair would become pre- 
 maturely grey, and the muscles of their limbs would waste 
 away and shrink up." 4 The Dieri think that if a native 
 grows grey or has much hair on his breast in youth, it has 
 been caused by his eating iguana in childhood. 6 In North 
 America the Creek youths at puberty were forbidden for 
 twelve months to eat of young bucks, turkey-cocks, fowls, 
 peas, and salt. 6 The Andamanese abstain from various 
 
 1 lb., xiv. p. 316. 
 
 2 lb., 360. So with the Uaupe's on the Amazon (A. E. Wallace, 
 Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, p. 496). 
 
 3 Journ. and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1882, pp. 208. 
 
 4 Journ. and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1883, p. 27. 
 6 Native Tribes of S. Australia, p. 279. 
 
 6 . Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, i. p. 185. 
 For superstitious abstinence from salt, cf. Adair, Hist. Amer. 
 Indians, pp. 59, 115, 125, 166; Acosta, Hist, of the Indies, v. 
 17; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tr., v. p. 268; Du Tertre, Histoire generate 
 des Antilles, vol. ii. (Paris, 1667) p. 371; Bancroft, Nat. Races of 
 the Pac. St. , i. p. 520» ; Sievers, Reise in der Sierra Nevada de Santa 
 Marta, p. 94 ; C. Bock, Headhunters of Borneo, pp. 218, 223 ; 
 Plutarch, Qu. Conviv., viii. 8, 2 ; Id., 7s. et Osir., 5; A. R. Wallace, 
 Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, p. 502 ; Asiatick Researches, 
 vii. p. 307; Duff Macdonald, Africana, i. pp. 110, 170; Grierson, 
 Bihar Peasant Life, p. 405. For an African example of the pro- 
 hibition of different foods at successive periods of life, see Dapper, 
 Description de TAfriaue, p. 336. 
 
TOTEMISM. 45 
 
 kinds of food, including turtle, honey, and pork, for a year 
 or several years before puberty; and amongst the cere- 
 monies by which they are made free of these foods is the 
 smearing of their bodies by the chief with honey and the 
 melted fat of turtle and pork. 1 
 
 These ceremonies seem also to be meant to admit the | 
 youth into the life of the clan, and hence of the totem. 
 The latter appears to be the meaning of a Carib ceremony, 
 in which the father of the youth took a live bird of prey, 
 of a particular species, and beat his son with it till the 
 bird was dead and its head crushed, thus transferring the 
 life and spirit of the martial bird to the future warrior. 
 Further, he scarified his son all over, rubbed the juices of 
 the bird into the wounds, and gave him the bird's heart to 
 eat. 2 Amongst some Australian tribes the youth at initia- 
 tion is smeared with blood drawn from the arms either of 
 aged men or of all the men present, and he even receives the 
 blood to drink. Amongst some tribes on the Darling this 
 tribal blood is his only food for two days. 3 The meaning 
 
 1 E. H. Man, Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, 
 p. 62 sq. 
 
 2 Rochefort, Hist. nat. et mor. des lies Antilles (Rotterdam, 1666), 
 p. 556; Du Tertre, Histoire generate des Antilles, vol. ii. p. 377. 
 
 3 /. A. I., xiii. 128, 295; G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in 
 Austr. and New Zeal., i. 115; Nat. Tribes of S. Austr., 162 sq., 227, 
 232,. 231, 270; Brough Smyth, i. 67 sq. ; Fison and Howitt, 286. The 
 Australians also draw blood from themselves and give it to their sick 
 relations to drink (J. A. I., xiii. 132 sq.). So do the Hare Indians 
 in America (Petitot, Monor/raphie des Dene- Dindjie, p. 60; Id., Tra- 
 ditions Indiennes du Canada Nordouest, p. 269). Amongst the Guamos 
 on the Orinoco the chief was hound to draw blood from his body 
 wherewith to anoint the stomach of a sick clansman. If sickness was 
 at all prevalent he was thus reduced to great emaciation (Gumilla, 
 Hist, de I'Orenoque, i. p. 261). The Chinese sometimes cut pieces 
 out of their flesh and give them to their sick parents to eat (Dennys, 
 Folk-Lore of China, p. 68 sq.). Amongst some of the Caribs a new- 
 born child was smeared with its father's blood (Rochefort, op. cit., p. 
 
46 TOTEMISM. 
 
 of this smearing with blood seems put beyond a doubt by 
 the following custom. Among the Gonds, a non-Aryan 
 race of Central India, the rajas, by intermarriage with 
 Hindus, have lost much of their pure Gond blood, and are 
 half Hindus ; hence one of the ceremonies at their installa- 
 tion is " the touching of their foreheads with a drop of 
 blood drawn from the body of a pure aborigine of the tribe 
 they belong to." 1 Further, the Australians seek to convey 
 to the novices the powers and dignity of manhood by 
 means of certain magic passes, while the youths receive 
 the spiritual gift with corresponding gestures. 2 Among 
 some tribes the youths at initiation sleep on the graves of 
 their ancestors, in order to absorb their virtues. 3 It is, 
 however, a very notable fact that the initiation of an 
 Australian youth is said to be conducted, not by men of 
 the same totem, but by men of that portion of the tribe 
 into which he may marry. 4 In some of the Victorian 
 tribes no person related to the youth by blood can interfere 
 or assist in his initiation. 5 Whether this is true of all 
 tribes and of all the rites at initiation does not appear. 6 
 Connected with totemism is also the Australian cere- 
 
 552). In all these eases the idea is that the life of the elan or family I 
 is in the hlood, and may be transferred with the blood from one member I 
 of it to another. For another way of communicating the common life 1 
 of the clan to a sick member of it, see Jour, and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. 
 Wales, 1883, p. 32. 
 
 1 J. Forsyth, Highlands of Central India, p. 137. 
 
 2 J. A. L, xiii. 451. 
 
 3 Jour, and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1882, p. 172. 
 « Howitt in J. A. I., xiii. 458. 
 
 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 30. 
 
 6 We should certainly expect it not to be true of the blood smearing. 
 And this ceremony appears not to be practised by the tribes referred 
 to by Howitt and Dawson, 11. cc. The plucking out of the hair of the 
 pubis (see below) is performed by men of a different tribe (Eyre, 
 Journals, ii. p. 337). 
 
TOTEMISM. 47 
 
 mony at initiation of pretending to recall a dead man to 
 life by the utterance of his totem name. An old man lies 
 down in a grave and is covered up lightly with earth j but 
 at the mention of his totem name he starts up to life. 1 
 Sometimes it is believed that the youth himself is killed 
 by a being called Thuremlui, who cuts him up, restores 
 him to life, and knocks out a tooth. 2 Here the idea 
 seems to be that of a second birth, or the beginning of a 
 new life for the novice ; hence he receives a new name at 
 the time when he is circumcised, or the tooth knocked 
 out, or the blood of the kin poured on him. 3 Amongst the 
 Indians of Virginia and the Quojas in Africa, the youths 
 after initiation pretended to forget the whole of their former 
 lives (parents, language, customs, &c), and had to learn 
 everything over again like new-born babes. 4 A Wolf clan 
 in Texas used to dress up in wolf skins and run about on 
 all fours, howling and mimicking wolves ; at last they 
 scratched up a living clansman, who had been buried on 
 purpose, and, putting a bow and arrows in his hands, bade 
 him do as the wolves do — rob, kill, and murder. 5 This may 
 have been an initiatory ceremony, revealing to the novice 
 in pantomime the double origin of the clan— from wolves 
 and from the ground. For it is a common belief with 
 totem clans that they issued originally from the ground. 6 
 
 1 J. A. L, xiii. 453 sq. 2 lb., xiv. 358. 
 
 3 Angas, i. 115 ; Brough Smyth, i. 75re; J. A. I., xiv. 357, 359 ; 
 Nat. Tr. of S. Austr., pp. 232, 269. Hence, too, the plucking of 
 the hair from the pubis or incipient beard of the youth at initiation. 
 See Eyre, Journals, ii. p. 337 sq., 340; Native Tribes of S. Australia, 
 p. 188. 
 
 4 R. Beverley, History of Virginia (London, 1722), p. 177 sq. ; 
 Dapper, Description de VAfrique, p. 268. On initiation regarded as 
 a new birth, see Kulischer in Zeiischrift fur Ethnologic, xv. p. 194 sq. 
 
 5 Schoolcraft, Inch. Tr. , v. 683. 
 
 6 Lewis and Clarke, i. 190, ed. 1815; Dwight, Travels in New 
 
48 TOTEMISM. 
 
 Connected with this mimic death and revival of a clans- 
 man appears to be the real death and supposed revival of 
 the totem itself. We have seen that some Californian 
 Indians killed the buzzard, and then buried and mourned 
 over it like a clansman. But it was believed that, as often 
 as the bird was killed, it was made alive again. Much 
 the same idea appears in a Zuni ceremony described by an 
 eyewitness, Mr Cushing. He tells how a procession of fifty 
 men set off for the spirit-land, or (as the Zunis call it) 
 " the home of our others," and returned after four days, 
 each man bearing a basket full of living, squirming turtles. 
 One turtle was brought to the house where Mr Cushing 
 was staying, and it was welcomed with divine honours. 
 It was addressed as, " Ah ! my poor dear lost child or 
 parent, my sister or brother to have been ! Who knows 
 which 1 May be my own great great grandfather or 
 mother 1 " Nevertheless, next day it was killed and its 
 flesh and bones deposited in the river, that it might 
 " return once more to eternal life among its comrades 
 in the dark waters of the lake of the dead." The idea 
 that the turtle was dead was repudiated with passionate 
 sorrow ; it had only, they said, " changed houses and 
 gone to live for ever in the home of ' our lost others.' " 1 
 The meaning of such ceremonies is not clear. Perhaps, as 
 has been suggested, 2 they are piacular sacrifices, in which 
 the god dies for his people. This is borne out by the 
 
 England and NewYork, iv. p. 185; ThirdRep., p. 237; Maximilian, 
 Prinz zu Wied, Nord-Ameriha, ii. 160; C. C. Jonas, Antiquities of the 
 Southern Indians, p. i sq. The Californian Indians think that their 
 coyote ancestors were moulded directly from the soil (S. Powers, 
 Tribes of California, pp. 5, 147). 
 
 1 Mr Cushing in Century Magazine, May 1883. 
 
 2 See Encyclojpsedia Britannica, article "Sacrifice," vol. xxi. p. 137. 
 
TOTEMISM. 49 
 
 curses with which the Egyptians loaded the head of the 
 slain bull. 1 Such solemn sacrifices of the totem are not 
 to be confused with the mere killing of the animal for 
 food, even when the killing is accompanied by apologies 
 and tokens of sorrow. Whatever their meaning, they 
 appear not to be found among the rudest totem tribes, 
 but only amongst peoples like the Zuni and Egyptians, 
 who, retaining totemism, have yet reached a certain level 
 of culture. (The idea of the immortality of the individual ' 
 totem, which is brought out in these ceremonies, appears I 
 to be an extension of the idea of the immortality of the 
 species, which is, perhaps, of the essence of totemism, 
 and is prominent, e.g., in Samoa. I Hence it is not neces- 
 sary to suppose that the similar festivals, which, with 
 mingled lamentation and joy, celebrate the annual death 
 and revival of vegetation, 2 are directly borrowed from 
 totemism ; both may spring independently from the obser- 
 vation of the mortality of the individual and the immor- 
 tality of the species. 
 
 Closely connected with totemism, though crossing the 
 regular lines of totem kinship, are the sacred dancing 
 bands or associations, which figure largely in the social life 
 of many North American tribes. These bands for the I 
 most part bear animal names, and possess characteristic 
 dances, also badges which the members wear in dancing, 
 and which often, though not always, consist of some parts 
 (skin, claws, &c.) of the animals from which the bands 
 take their name. As distinguished from totem clans, 
 these bands consist not of kinsmen, but of members who 
 
 1 Herod., ii. 39. 
 
 2 See Encyc. Britan., ninth ed., article "Thesmophoria." 
 
50 TOTEMISM. 
 
 have purchased the privilege of admission, and who in each 
 soeiety are generally all about the same age, boys belong- 
 ing to one band, youths to another, and so on through the 
 different stages of life. In some tribes both sexes belong 
 to all the bands ; in others there are separate bands for 
 the sexes. Some of the bands are entrusted with certain 
 police functions, such as maintaining order in the camp, on 
 the march, in hunting, &C. 1 Such associations probablyv 
 originate in a feeling that the protection of the totem is 
 not by itself sufficient ; feeling this, men seek an ad- 
 ditional protection. Hence some of these bands have 
 "medicines" with which they rub their bodies before 
 going into battle, believing that this makes them invulner- 
 able. 2 However, in the Snake Band of the Moquis we 
 have an instance of a kinship group expanding by natural 
 growth into a religious association, 3 and this is probably 
 not an isolated case. 
 
 The " clans " which Mr Philander Prescott described as existing » 
 among the Dacotas in 1847 4 appear to have been religious associa- 
 tions rather than totem clans. These Dacota ' ' clans " were con- 
 stituted by the use of the same roots for " medicine " ; each " clan " 
 had its special "medicine," and there were constant feuds between 
 them owing to the belief that each "clan" employed its magic 
 "medicine" to injure men of other "clans." Each "clan" had 
 some sacred animal (bear, wolf, buffalo, &c), or part of an animal 
 (head, tail, liver, wing, &e.), which they venerated through life, 
 and might not eat nor (if it was a whole animal) kill; nor might 
 they step on or over it. 6 Violation of these rules was thought to 
 
 1 See Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Nord-Ainerika, i. 401, 440 sq 
 576-579, ii. 138-146, 217-219, 240 sq.; Third Rep., pp. 342-355, 
 cf. Second Hep., p. 16. 3 Third Report, 349, 351. 
 
 s Bourke, Snake Dance, p. 180 sq. 
 
 " In Schoolcraft's Ind. Tr., ii. 171, 175. 
 
 6 Stepping over a person or thing is not, to the primitive mind, 
 merely disrespectful ; it is supposed to exercise an injurious influence 
 on the person or thing stepped over. 
 
TOTEMISM. 51 
 
 bring trouble on the offender. All this is totemic; but the mode 
 of admission to the "clans" (namely, through the great medicine 
 dance) seems appropriate rather to associations. 
 
 At this point a few words may be added on two sub- 
 ordinate kinds of totems which have been already referred 
 to. 
 
 Sex Totems. — In Australia (but, so far as is known at 
 present, nowhere else) each of the sexes has, at least in 
 some tribes, its special sacred animal, whose name each 
 individual of the sex bears, regarding the animal as his or 
 her brother or sister respectively, not killing it nor suffer- / 
 ing the opposite sex to kill it. These sacred animals' 
 therefore answer strictly to the definition of totems. Thus 
 amongst the Kurnai all the men were called Yeerung 
 (Emu-Wren) and all the women Djeetgun (Superb War- 
 bler). The birds called Yeerung were the " brothers " of 
 the men, and the birds called Djeetgun were the women's 
 "sisters." If the men killed an emu-wren they were 
 attacked by the women, if the womeu killed a superb 
 warbler they were assailed by the men. Yeerung and 
 Djeetgun were the mythical ancestors of the Kurnai. 1 
 
 The Eulin tribe in Victoria, in addition to sixteen clan totems, 
 has two pairs of sex totems ; one pair (the emu-wren and superb 
 warbler) is identical with the Kurnai pair ; the other pair is the 
 bat (male totem) and the small night jar (female totem). The 
 latter pair extends to the extreme north-western confines of Victoria 
 as the " man's brother " and the " woman's sister. " 2 Amongst the 
 Coast Murring tribe, as among the Kurnai and Kulin, the emu- 
 wren is the "man's brother," but the "woman's sister" is the 
 tree creeper. 3 Among the Mukjarawaint in western Victoria, who 
 have regular clan totems (white cockatoo, black cockatoo, iguana, 
 
 1 Fison and Howitt, 194, 201 sq., 215, 235. 
 
 2 J. A. I., xv. p. 416, c/. xii. p. 507. 
 
 3 Id., xv. 416. 
 
52 TOTEMISM. 
 
 crow, eaglehawk, &c), all the men have, besides, the bat for their 
 totem, and all the women have the small night jar for theirs. 1 
 The Ta-ta-thi group of tribes in New South "Wales, in addition to 
 regular clan totems, has a pair of sex totems, the bat for men and 
 a small owl for women; (men and women address each other as 
 Owls and Bats] and there is a fight if a woman kills a bat or a 
 man kills a small owl. 2 Of some Victorian tribes it is said that 
 "the common bat belongs to the men, who protect it against injury, 
 even to the half killing of their wives for its sake. The fern owl, 
 or large goatsucker, belongs to the women, and although a bird of 
 evil omen, creating terror at night by its cry, it is jealously pro- 
 tected by them. If a man kills one, they are as much enraged as 
 if it was one of their children, and will strike him with their long 
 poles." 3 At Gunbower Creek on the lower Murray the natives 
 called the bat "brother belonging to blackfellow," and would 
 never kill one ; they said that if a bat were killed, one of their 
 women would be sure to die. 4 Among the Port Lincoln tribe, South 
 Australia, the male and female of a small lizard seem to be the male 
 and female totems respectively ; at least either sex is said to have 
 a mortal hatred of the opposite sex of these little animals, the men 
 always destroying the female and the women the male. They have 
 a myth that the lizard divided the sexes in the human species. 6 
 
 Clearly these sex totems are not to be confounded with 
 
 clan totems. To see in them, as Messrs Fison and Howitt 
 
 do or did, merely clan totems in a state of transition from 
 
 female to male kinship is to confound sex with kinship. 
 
 Even if such a view could have been held so long as sex 
 
 totems were only known to exist among the Kurnai, who 
 
 have no clan totems left, it must have fallen to the ground 
 
 when sex totems were found coexisting with clan totems, 
 
 and that either with female or male (uterine or agnatic) 
 
 descent. The sex totem seems to be still more sacred than 
 
 the clan totem ; for men who do not object to other people 
 
 1 /. A. I., xii. 45. 2 Id., xiv. 350. 
 
 3 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 52. 
 
 4 Trans. Philosqph. Soo. XT. S. Wales, 1862-1865, p. 359 sq. 
 
 5 Angas, op. ait., i. 109; Nat. Tr. of S. Austr., p. 241. 
 
TOTEMISM. 53 
 
 killing their clan totem will fiercely defend their sex totem 
 against any attempt of the opposite sex to injure it. 1 
 
 Individual Totems. — It is not only the clans and the ul 
 sexes that have totems ; individuals also have their own 
 special totems, i.e., classes of objects (generally species of 
 animals), which they regard as related to themselves by 
 those ties of mutual respect and protection which are L - L - L - 
 characteristic of totemism. This relationship, however, in 
 the case of the individual totem, begins and ends with the 
 individual man, and is not, like the clan totem, transmitted 
 by inheritance. The evidence for the existence of indi- 
 vidual totems in Australia, though conclusive, is very 
 scanty. In North America it is abundant. 
 
 In Australia we hear of a medicine-man whose clan totem through 
 his mother was kangaroo, but whose "secret" (i.e., individual) 
 totem was the tiger-snake. Snakes of that species, therefore, would 
 not hurt him. 2 An Australian seems usually to get his individual 
 totem by dreaming that he has been transformed into an animal of ■ ■ ■■ 
 the species. Thus a man who had dreamed several times that he 
 had become a lace-lizard was supposed to have acquired power over 
 lace-lizards, and he kept a tame one, which was thought to give 
 him supernatural knowledge and to act as his emissary for mischief. 
 Hence he was known as Bunjil Bataluk (Old Lizard). 3 Another 
 man dreamed three times he-was a kangaroo ; hence he became one 
 of the kangaroo kindred, and might not eat any part of a kangaroo 
 on which there was blood ; he might not even carry home one on 
 which there was blood. He might eat cooked kangaroo; but if he 
 were to eat the meat with the blood on it, the spirits would no 
 longer take him up aloft. 4 
 
 1 J. A. I., xiv. p. 350. 
 
 2 Id., xvi. p. 50. 3 lb., 34. 
 
 4 lb. , 45. The aversion, in certain cases, of savages to Hood 
 seems to be an important factor in their customs. The North American 
 Indians, ' ' through a strong principle of religion, abstain in the strictest 
 manner from eating the blood of any animal" (Adair, Hist. Amer. 
 Ind., p. 134). They "commonly pull their new-killed venison (before 
 they dress it) several times through the smoke and flame of the fire, 
 both by the way of a sacrifice and to consume the blood, life, or animal 
 
54 TOTEMISM. 
 
 In America the individual totem is usually the first animal of 
 which a youth dreams during the long and generally solitary fasts 
 which American Indians observe at puberty. He kills the animal | 
 or bird of which he dreams, and henceforward wears its skin or 
 feathers, or some part of them, as an amulet, especially on the 
 war-path and in hunting. 1 A man may even (though this seems 
 exceptional) acquire several totems in this way ; thus an Ottawa 
 medicine-man had for his individual totems the tortoise, swan, 
 woodpecker, and crow, because he had dreamed of them all in his 
 fast at puberty. 2 The respect paid to the individual totem varies 
 in different tribes. Among the Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians 
 a man may not eat, skin, nor if possible kill his individual totem, 
 which in these tribes is said to be always a carnivorous animal. 
 Each man carries with him a picture of his totem (bought of a v 
 trader) ; when he is unsuccessful in the chase, he pulls out the 
 picture, smokes to it, and makes it a speech. 3 
 
 The sacrifices made to the individual totem are sometimes very 
 heavy ; a Mandan has been known to turn loose the whole of his 
 horses and abandon them for ever as a sacrifice to his " medicine " 
 or individual totem. 4 The sacrifices at the fasts at puberty some- 
 spirits of the beast, which it would be a, most horrid abomination to 
 eat" (ib., p. 117). Many of the Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians 
 will not taste the blood of game ; hunters of the two former tribes 
 collect the blood in the paunch of the animal and bury it in the snow 
 at some distance from the flesh (Petitot, Monographic des Dene- 
 Dindjie, p. 76). Men have a special objection to see the blood of 
 women, at least at certain times ; they say that if they were to see it 
 they would not be able to fight against their enemies and would be 
 killed (Mrs James Smith, The Booandik Tribe, p. 5). Hence, although 
 bleeding is a common Australian cure for men, women are not allowed 
 to be bled (Angas, i. p. 111). This aversion is perhaps the explana- 
 tion of that seclusion of women at puberty, childbirth, &c, which 
 has assumed different forms in many parts of the world. 
 
 1 Catlin, N. Amer. Indians, i. p. 36 sq. ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tr., v. 
 p. 196; Id., Amer. Ind., p. 213; Lettr. ltdif., vi. 173; Washington 
 Matthews, Hidatsa Indians, p. 50 ; Sproat, Scenes and Studies of 
 Savage Life, p. 173 sq. ; Bancroft, i. 283 sq. ; Id., iii. 156; Mayne, 
 Brit. Columb.,y. 302; P. Jones, Hist. Ojebway Indians, p. 87 sq.; 
 Loskiel, i. 40; Tr. Ethnol. Soe., new series, iv. 281, 295 sq.; Petitot, 
 Monographie des Dini-Dindjti, p. 36 ; Collect. Minnes. Hist. Soc, 
 v. p. 65 ; American Antiquarian, ii. p. 10; Parkman, Jesuits in 
 North America, p. lxx. sq. 2 Schoolcraft, Am. Ind., p. 210. 
 
 3 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1866, p. 307 • 
 cf. Petitot, I.e. 
 
 4 Lewis and Clarke, i. p. 189 sq., 8vo ed., 1815. 
 
TOTEMISM. 55 
 
 times consist of finger joints. 1 The Mosquito Indians in Central 
 America, after dreaming of the beast or bird, sealed their compact 
 with it by drawing blood from various parts of their body. 2 The ^ 
 Innuits of Alaska (who are not Indians, but belong to the Eskimo 
 family and have no clan totems) do not scruple to eat their guardian 
 animals, and, if unsuccessful, they change their patron. Innuit 
 women have no such guardian auimals. 3 The Indians of Canada 
 also changed their okki or manitoo (individual totem) if they had 
 reason to be dissatisfied with it; amongst them, women had also \ 
 their okkis or manitoos, but did not pay so much heed to them as | 
 did the men. They tattooed their individual totems on their 
 persons. 4 Amongst the Indians of San Juan Capistrano, a figure 
 of the individual totem, which was acquired as usual by fasting, 
 was moulded in a paste made of crushed herbs on the right arm 
 of the novice. Fire was then set to it, and thus the figure of 
 the totem was burned into the flesh. 6 Sometimes the individual 
 totem is not acquired by the individual himself at puberty, but is 
 fixed for him independently of his will at birth. Thus among * 
 the tribes of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, when a woman was about 
 to be confined, the relations assembled in the hut and drew on the 
 floor figures of different animals, rubbing each one out as soon as 
 it was finished. This went on till the child was born, and the figure 
 that then remained sketched on the ground was the child's tona or 
 totem. When he grew older the child procured his totem animal 
 and took care of it, believing that his life was bound up with the 
 animal's, and that when it died he too must die. 6 Similarly in 
 Samoa, at child-birth the help of several ' ' gods " was invoked in 
 succession, and the one who happened to be addressed at the 
 moment of the birth was the infant's totem. These "gods" were 
 dogs, eels, sharks, lizards, &c. A Samoan had no objection to eat / 
 another man's " god " ; but to eat his own would have been death </ 
 or injury to him. 7 Amongst the Quiches in Central America, the 
 sorcerer gives the infant the name of an animal, which becomes 
 
 1 Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Nord-Amerika, ii. p. 166. 
 
 2 Bancroft, i. p. 740 sq. 
 
 3 Dall, Alaska, p. 145. 
 
 4 Charlevoix, Sist. de la JVouv. Fr., vi. 67 sq. The word okki is 
 Huron ; manitoo is Algonkin [ib. ; Sagard, Le grand Voyage du pays 
 des Murons, p. 231). 
 
 5 JBoscana in A. Robinson's Life in California, pp. 270 sq., 273; 
 Bancroft, i. 414, iii. 167 sq. 
 
 6 Bancroft, i. 661. 7 Turner, Samoa, 17. 
 
56 TOTEMISM. 
 
 the child's guardian spirit for life. 1 In all such cases there is the 
 possibility of the totem being ancestral; it may be that of the 
 mother or father. In one Central American tribe the son of a chief 
 was free to choose whether he would accept the ancestral totem or 
 adopt a new one-, but a son who did not adopt his father's totem 
 was always hateful to his father during his life. 2 Sometimes the . 
 okkis or mauitoos acquired by dreams are not totems but fetiches, v 
 being not classes of objects but individual objects, such as a par- 
 ticular tree, rock, knife, pipe, &c. 3 When the okkis or manitoos 
 are, as sometimes happens, not acquired by a special preparation 
 like fasting, bat picked up at hazard, they have no longer any 
 resemblance to totems, but are fetiches pure and simple. 4 The 
 Andamanese appear to have individual totems, for every man and 
 woman is prohibited all through life from eating some one (or 
 more) fish or animal ; generally the forbidden food is one which 
 the mother thought disagreed with the child ; but if no food dis- 
 agreed with him, the person is free to choose what animal he will 
 avoid. 5 Some of the people of Mora, Banks Islands, have a kind 
 of individual totem called tamaniu. It is some object, generally 
 an animal, as a lizard or snake, but sometimes a stone, with which 
 
 , the person imagines that his life is bound up ; if it dies or is broken 
 or lost, he will die. Fancy dictates the choice of a tamaniu; or it 
 
 \may be found "by drinking an infusion of certain herbs and 
 heaping together the dregs. Whatever living thing is first seen in 
 or upon the heap is the tamaniu. It is watched but not fed or 
 worshipped." It is thought to come at call. 6 But as the tamaniu 
 seems to be an individual object, it is a fetich rather than a 
 totem. 
 
 Besides the £lan_lotem, sex_ totem, and indjyidual_totem, there 
 are (as has been indicatea) some other kinds or varieties of totems ; 
 but the consideration of them had better be deferred until the social 
 organization based on totemism has been described. 
 
 1 Bancroft, i. 703. 
 
 2 Id., i. 753. 
 
 s Lafltau, Mceursdes Sauvages Ameriquains, i. 370 sq.; Charlevoix, 
 Hist, de la Nouv. Fr., vi. 68 ; "Kohl, Kitchi Qami, i. 85 sq. 
 
 4 Rel. des Jte., 1648, p. 74 sq. 
 
 6 E. H. Man, Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, y>. 
 134. 
 
 6 The Eev. R. H. Codrington in Trans, and Proc. Roy. Soc. of 
 Victoria, xvi. p. 136. The Banks Islanders are divided into two 
 exogamous intermarrying divisions with descent in the female line 
 (ib., p. 119 sq.), but these divisions seem not to possess totems. 
 
TOTEMISM. 57 
 
 Social Aspect of Totemism, or the relation of the men of 
 a totem to each other and to men of other totems. 
 
 (1) All the members of a totem clan regard each other 
 as kinsmen or brothers and sisters, and are bound to help 
 and protect each other. 1 The totem bond is stronger than J 
 the bond of blood or family in the modern sense. This is 
 expressly stated of the clans of western Australia and of 
 north-western America, 2 and is probably true of all societies 
 where totemism exists in full force. Hence in totem tribes 
 every local group, being necessarily composed (owing to 
 exogamy) of members of at least two totem clans, is liable"' 
 to be dissolved at any moment into its totem elements by 
 the outbreak of a blood feud, in which husband and wife 
 must always (if the feud is between their clans) be arrayed 
 on opposite sides, and in which the children will be arrayed 
 against either their father or their mother, according as 
 descent is traced through the mother, or through the 
 father. 3 In blood feud the whole clan of the aggressor is * 
 responsible for his deed, and the whole clan of the aggrieved 
 is entitled to satisfaction. 4 Nowhere perhaps is this 
 solidarity carried further than among the Goajiros in 
 Colombia, South America. The Goajiros are divided into 
 
 1 James in Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John 
 Tanner, p. 313 ; P. Jones, Hist. Ojebway Indians, p. 138 ; Oeol. 
 Sur. of Canada, Hep. for 1878-79, p. 134b; H. Hale, The Iroquois 
 Book of Mites, p. 52; A. Hodgson, Letters from North America, i. 
 p. 246; Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 81 sq. 
 
 2 Grey, Journ. , ii. 231 ; Report of the Smithsonian Inst, for 1866, 
 p. 315; Petroff, Rep. on Alaska, p. 165. Other authorities speak 
 to the superiority of the totem bond over the tribal bond (Morgan, 
 League of the Iroquois, p. 82 ; Mayne, Brit. Columh., p. 257 ; 
 American Antiquarian, ii. p. 109). 
 
 3 Grey, Journals, ii. 230, 238 sq. ; Smithsonian Rep. , loo. cit. 
 
 * Fison and Howitt, 156 sq., 216 sq. Sometimes the two clans meet 
 and settle it by single combat between picked champions {Journ. and 
 Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1882, p. 226). 
 
58 TOTEMISM. 
 
 some twenty to thirty totem clans, with, descent in the 
 female line ; and amongst them, if a man happens to cut 
 himself with his own knife, to fall off his horse, or to 
 injure himself in any way, his family on the mother's side 
 immediately demand payment as blood-money from him. 
 I " Being of their blood, he is not allowed to spill it without 
 paying for it.'' His father's family also demands com- 
 pensation, but not so much. 1 
 
 J To kill a fellow-clansman is a heinous offence. In 
 Mangaia " such a blow was regarded as falling upon the 
 god [totem] himself ; the literal sense of " ta atua " [to 
 kill a member of the same totem clan] being god-striking 
 or god-killing." 2 | 
 ^ (2) Exogamy. — Persons of the same totem may not 
 marry or have sexual intercourse with each other. The 
 Navajos believe that if they married within the clan 
 " their bones would dry up and they would die." 3 But 
 the penalty for infringing this fundamental law is not 
 merely natural; the clan steps in and punishes the offenders. 
 In Australia the regular penalty for sexual intercourse with 
 a person of a forbidden clan is death. 
 
 It matters not whether the woman be of the same local group or 
 has been captured in war from another tribe ; a man of the wrong 
 clan who uses her as his wife is hunted down and killed by his 
 clansmen, and so is the woman ; though in some cases, if they suc- 
 ceed in eluding capture for a certain time, the offence may be con- 
 doned. In the Ta-ta-thi tribe, New South "Wales, in the rare 
 cases which occur, the man is killed but the woman is only beaten 
 or speared, or both, till she is nearly dead ; the reason given for not 
 
 1 Simons in Proc. R. Geogr. Soc, Nov. 1885, p. 789 sq. Simons's 
 information is repeated by W. Sievers in his Reise in der Sierra Nevada 
 de Santa Marta (Leipsic, 1887), p. 255 sq. 
 
 2 Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 38. 
 
 3 Bourke, Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, p. 279. 
 
TOTEMISM. 59 
 
 actually killing her being that she was probably coerced. Even in 
 casual amours the clan prohibitions are strictly observed ; any 
 violations of these prohibitions "are regarded with the utmost 
 abhorrence and are punished by death." J Sometimes the punish- 
 ment stops short at a severe beating or spearing. Amongst some of 
 the Victorian tribes, " should any sign of affection and courtship be 
 observed between those of 'one flesh,' the brothers or male relatives 
 of the woman beat her severely ; the man is brought before the 
 chief, and accused of an intention to fall into the same flesh, and is 
 severely reprimanded by the tribe. If he persists and runs away 
 with the object of his affections, they beat and ' cut his head all 
 over, ' and if the woman was a consenting party she is half killed. " 2 
 An important exception to these rules, if it is correctly reported, 
 is that of the Port Lincoln tribe, which is divided into two clans 
 Mattiri and Karraru, and it is said that though persons of the same 
 clan never marry, yet "they do not seem to consider less virtuous 
 connexions between parties of the same class [clan] incestuous." 3 
 Another exception, which also rests on the testimony of a single 
 witness, is found among the Kunandaburi tribe. 4 Again, of the 
 tribes on the lower Murray, lower Darling, &c, it is said that 
 though the slightest blood relationship is with them a bar to 
 marriage, yet in their sexual intercourse they are perfectly free, and 
 incest of every grade continually occurs. 6 
 
 In America the Algonkins consider it highly criminal 
 for a man to marry a woman of the same totem as himself, 
 and. they tell of cases where men, for breaking this rule, 
 have been put to death by their nearest relations. 6 
 Amongst the Ojibways also death is said to have been 
 formerly the penalty. 7 Amongst the Loucheux and Tinneh 
 the penalty is merely ridicule. " The man is said to have 
 
 1 Howitt in Rep. of the Smithsonian Inst, for 1883, p. 804 ; Fison 
 and Howitt, pp. 64-67, 289, 344 sq.; J. A. I., xiv. p. 351 sq. 
 
 2 Dawson, Austr. Abor., p. 28. 
 
 3 Nat. Tr. of S. Australia, p. 222. 
 
 4 Howitt in Ann. Hep. of the Smithsonian Inst, for 1883, p. 804. 
 
 5 Jour, and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1883, p. 24; Transactions 
 of the Royal Society of Victoria, vi. p. 16. 
 
 6 James in Tanner's Narr., p. 313. 
 
 7 Collect. Minnesota Eistor. Soc, v. p. 42. 
 
 i/ 
 
60 TOTEMISM. 
 
 married Lis sister, even though she may be from another 
 tribe and there be not the slightest connection by blood 
 between the two." 1 
 
 J In some tribes the marriage prohibition only extends to 
 a man's own totem clan ; he may marry a woman of any 
 totem but his own. This is the case with the Haidas of 
 the Queen Charlotte Islands, 2 and, so far as appears, the 
 Narrinyeri in South Australia, 3 and the western Aus- 
 tralian tribes described by Sir George Grey. 4 Oftener, 
 however, the prohibition includes several clans, in none of 
 which is a man allowed to marry. For such an exogamous 
 group of clans within the tribe it is convenient to have a 
 / name ; we shall therefore call it a phratry (L. H. Morgan), 
 defining it as an exogamous division intermediate between 
 the tribe and the clan. The evidence goes to show that 
 in many cases it was originally a totem clan which has 
 undergone subdivision. 
 
 Examples. — The Creek Indians are at present divided into about 
 j twenty clans (Bear, Deer, Panther, "Wild-Cat, Skunk, Racoon, 
 | Wolf, Fox, Beaver, Toad, Mole, Maize, Wind, &c. ), and some clans 
 have become extinct. These clans 'are (or were) exogamous; a 
 Bear might not marry a Bear, &c. But further, a Panther was 
 prohibited from marrying not only a Panther but also a Wild-Cat. 
 Therefore the Panther and Wild-Cat clans together form a phratry. 
 Similarly a Toad might not marry a member of the extinct clan 
 Tchu-Kotalgi ; therefore the Toad and Tchu-Kotalgi clans formed 
 another phratry. Other of the Creek clans may have been included 
 in these or other phratries ; but the memory of such arrangements, 
 if they existed, has perished. 5 The Moquis of Arizona are divided 
 into at least twenty-three totem clans, which are grouped in ten 
 
 1 Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst, for 1866, p. 315. 
 
 2 Geol. Sur. of Canada, Rep. for 1878-79, p. 134b. 
 
 3 Nat. Tr. of S. Austr., p. 12; J. A. I., xii. p. 46. 
 
 4 Grey, Journ., ii. p. 226. 
 
 Gatschet, Migration Legend of the, Creek Indians, p. 154 sj. 
 
TOTEMISM. 61 « 
 
 phratries ; two of the phratries include three clans, the rest com- 
 prise two, and one clan (Blue-Seed-Grass) stands by itself. 1 The / 
 Chootaws were divided into two phratries, each of which included 1 ' 
 four clans ; marriage was prohibited between members of the same 
 phratry, but members of either phratry could marry into any clan 
 of the other. 2 The Chickasas are divided into two phratries — (1) 
 the Panther phratry, which includes four clans, namely the Wild- 
 Cat, Bird, Fish, and Deer ; and (2) the Spanish phratry, which 
 includes eight clans, namely Racoon, Spanish, Royal, Hush-ko-ni, 
 Squirrel, Alligator, Wolf, and Blackbird. 3 The Seneca tribe of 
 the Iroquois was divided into two phratries, each including four 
 clans, the Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and Turtle clans forming one 
 phratry, and the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk clans forming the 
 other. Originally, as among the Choctaws, marriage was prohibited 
 within the phratry but was permitted with any of the clans of 
 the other phratry ; the prohibition, however, has now broken down, 
 and a Seneca may marry a woman of any clan but his own. Hence 
 phratries, in our sense, no longer exist among the Sonecas, though 
 the organization survives for certain religious and social purposes. 4 V 
 The Cayuga tribe of Iroquois had also two phratries and eight clans, 
 but one phratry included five clans (Bear, Wolf, Turtle, Snipe, 
 Eel) and the other included three (Deer, Beaver, Hawk). 6 The 
 Onondaga-Iroquois have also eight clans, unequally distributed into 
 two phratries, the Wolf, Turtle, Snipe, Beaver, and Ball forming 
 one phratry, and the Deer, Eel, and Bear clans forming the other. 6 
 Amongst the Tuscarora-Iroquois the Bear, Beaver, Great Turtle, 
 and Eel clans form one phratry ; and the Grey Wolf, Yellow Wolf, 
 Little Turtle, and Snipe form the other. 7 The AVyandots (Hurons) 
 are divided into four phratries, the Bear, Deer, and Striped Turtle 
 forming the first; the Highland Turtle, Black Turtle, and Smooth 
 Large Turtle the second ; Hawk, Beaver, and Wolf the third ; 
 and Sea Snake and Porcupine the fourth. 8 
 
 The phratries of the Thlinkets and the Mohegans deserve especial 
 attention, because each phratry bears a name which is also the 
 name of one of the clans included in it. The Thlinkets are divided 
 as follows : — Raven phratry, with clans Raven, Frog, Goose, Sea- 
 
 1 Bourke, Snake Dance, p. 336. 
 
 2 Archmologia Americana, Trans, and Collect. Americ. Antiq. Soc, 
 vol. ii. p. 109; Morgan, A. S., pp. 99, 162. 
 
 3 Morgan, A. S., pp. 99, 163. p 4 Morgan; op. cit., pp. 90, 9J »/. 
 5 Morgan, op. cit, p. 91. 6 Morgan, op. cit, p. 91 sq. 
 
 7 Morgan, op. cit, p. 93. 8 First Rep., p. 60. 
 
62 TOTEMISM. 
 
 Lion, Owl, Salmon ; Wolf phratry, with clans Wolf, Bear, Eagle, 
 Whale, Shark, Auk. Members of the Raven phratry must marry 
 members of the Wolf phratry, and vice versa. 1 Considering the 
 prominent parts played in Thlinket mythology by the ancestors of 
 the two phratries, and considering that the names of the phratries 
 are also names of clans, it seems probable that the Raven and 
 Wolf were the two original clans of the Thlinkets, which afterwards 
 by subdivision became phratries. This was the opinion of the 
 Russian missionary Veniaminof, the best early authority on the 
 tribe. 2 Still more clearly do the Mohegan phratries appear to 
 have been formed by subdivision from clans. They are as follows : 3 
 — Wolf phratry, with clans Wolf, Bear, Dog, Opossum; Turtle 
 phratry, with clans Little Turtle, Mud Turtle, Great Turtle, Yellow 
 Eel; Turkey phratry, with clans Turkey, Crane, Chicken. Here 
 we are almost forced to conclude that the Turtle phratry was origin- 
 ally a Turtle clan which subdivided into a number of clans, each 
 of which took the name of a particular kind of turtle, while the 
 Yellow Eel clan may have been a later subdivision. Thus we get 
 a probable explanation of the origin of split totems ; they seem to 
 have arisen by the segmentation of a single original clan, which 
 had a whole animal for its totem, into a number of clans, each of 
 which took the name either of a part of the original animal or of a 
 subspecies of it. We may conjecture that this was the origin of 
 the Grey Wolf and the Yellow Wolf, and the Great Turtle and the 
 Little Turtle clans of the Tuscarora- Iroquois (see above, p. 61) ; the 
 Black Eagle and the White Engle, and the Deer and Deer-Tail clans 
 of the Kaws ; 4 and of the Highland Turtle (striped), Highland 
 Turtle (black), Mud Turtle, and Smooth Large Turtle clans of the 
 Wyandots (Hurons). 6 This conclusion, so far as concerns the 
 Hurons, is strengthened by the part played in Huron (and Iroquois) 
 mythology by the turtle, which is said to have received on its 
 back the first woman as she fell from the sky, and to have formed 
 and supported the earth by the accretion of soil on its back. 6 
 
 1 A. Krause, Die Tlinlcit-Indianer, 112, 220; Holmberg, op. cit., 
 293, 313; Pinart in Bull. Soc. Anthrop. Paris, 7th Nov. 1872, p. 
 792 sq. ; Petroff, Rep. on Alaska, p. 165 sq. 
 
 2 Petroff, op. cit, p. 166. s Morgan, op. cit, 174. 
 4 Morgan, op. cit, p. 156. 5 First Rep., p. 59. 
 
 6 Ret des Jes., 1636, p. 101; Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages 
 Ameriquains, i. p. 94 ; Charlevoix, Hist, de la Nouv. Fr., vi. p. 147; 
 T. Dwight, Travels in New England and New 1'ork, iv. p. 180 sq. 
 Precedence was given to the Turtle clan among the Iroquois (the kindred 
 
TOTEMISM. 63 
 
 This explanation of the origin of split totems is confirmed by the 
 custom of calling each member of a clan by a name which has some 
 reference to the common totem of the clan. Thus among the birth- 
 names x of boys in the Elk clan of the Omahas the following used to 
 be given to sons in order of their birth — Soft Horn, Yellow Horn, 
 Branching Horn, &c. Amongst the men's names in the same clan 
 are Elk, Standing Elk, White Elk, Big Elk, Dark Breast (of an 
 elk), Stumpy Tail (of an elk), &c. Amongst the women's names 
 in the same clan are Female Elk, Tail Female, &c. 2 Amongst the 
 names of men in the Black Shoulder (Buffalo) clan of the Omahas 
 are Black Tongue (of a buffalo), He that walks last in the herd, 
 Thick Shoulder (of a buffalo), &c. 3 And so with the names of 
 individual members of other clans. 4 The same custom of naming i 
 clansmen after some part or attribute of the clan totem prevails | 
 also among the Encounter Bay tribe in South Australia; a clan 
 totem of that tribe is the pelican, and a clansman may be called, 
 e.g., Pouch of a Pelican. 5 Clearly split totems might readily arise 
 from single families separating from the clan and expanding into 
 new clans, while they retained as clan names the names of their 
 individual founders, as White Elk, Pouch of a Pelican. Hence 
 such split totems as Bear's Liver, 6 Head of a Tortoise, Stomach of 
 a Pig (see above, p. 10); such taboos as those of the subclans of 
 the Omaha Black Shoulder clan (see above, p. 11); and such sub- 
 clans as the sections of the Omaha Turtle subclan, namely, Big 
 Turtle, Turtle that does not flee, Bed-Breasted Turtle, and Spotted 
 Turtle with red eyes. 7 Finally, Warren actually states that the 
 
 of the Hurons) (T. Dwight, op. cit., iv. p. 185; Zeisberger in H. 
 Hale, Tlie Iroquois Booh of Rites, p. 5in), the Delawares (Brinton, 
 The Lenape and their . Legends, p. 39; De Schweinitz, Life of Zeis- 
 berger, p. 79), and the Algonkins(Leland, Algoiiquin Legends of New 
 England, p. 51m) ; and Heckewelder (op. oil., p. 81) states generally 
 that the Turtle clan always takes the lead in the government of an 
 Indian tribe. In the Delaware mythology the turtle plays the same 
 part as in the Huron mythology (see above, p. 5). 
 
 1 "Two classes of names were in use, one adapted to childhood 
 and the other to adult life, which were exchanged at the proper period 
 in the same formal manner ; one being taken away, to use their ex- 
 pression, and the other bestowed in its place " (Morgan, A. S. , p. 79). 
 
 2 Third Rep., p. 227 sq. 3 /*., 232. 
 
 4 lb., 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 
 250 ; Morgan, A. S., p. 169m. 
 
 5 Nat. Tr. of S. Austr., p. 187. 
 
 6 P. Jones, Hist. Ojebway Ind., p. 138. 
 
 7 Third Rep., p. 240 sq. 
 
64 TOTEMISM. 
 
 numerous Bear clan of the Ojibways'was formerly subdivided into 
 subclans, each of which took for its totem some part of the Bear's 
 body (head, foot, ribs, &c), but that these have now merged into 
 two, the common Bear and the Grizzly Bear. 1 The subdivision 
 of the Turtle (Tortoise) clan, which on this hypothesis has taken 
 place among the Tuscarora- Iroquois, is nascent among the Onon- 
 daga-Iroquois, for among them "the name of this clan is Hahnowa, 
 which is the general word for tortoise ; but the clan is divided into 
 two septs or subdivisions, the Hanyatengona, or Great Tortoise, 
 and the Nikahnowaksa, or Little Tortoise, which together are held 
 to constitute but one clan." 2 
 
 On the other hand, fusion of clans is known to have 
 taken place, as among the Haidas, where the Black Bear 
 and Fin- Whale clans have united ; 3 and the same thing has 
 happened to some extent among the Omahas and Osages. 4 
 We may also suspect fusion of clans wherever apparently 
 disconnected taboos are observed by the same clan, as, e.g., 
 the prohibition to touch verdigris, charcoal, and the skin of 
 a cat (supra, p. 11 sq.). Fusion of clans would also explain 
 those totem badges which are said to be composed of parts 
 of different animals joined together. 5 
 
 In Australia the phratries are still more important than 
 in America. Messrs Howitt and Fison, who have done 
 so much to advance our knowledge of the social system of 
 the Australian aborigines, have given to these exogamous 
 divisions the name of classes ; but the term is objection- 
 able, because it fails to convey (1) that these divisions are 
 kinship divisions, and (2) that they are intermediate 
 divisions ; whereas the Greek term phratry conveys both 
 these meanings, and is therefore appropriate. 1 
 
 1 Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, v. p. 49. 
 
 2 H. Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, p. 53 sq. 
 
 3 Geol. Sun. of Canada, Rep. for 1878-79, p. 134b. 
 
 4 Third Rep., p. 235 ; American Naturalist, xviii. p. 114 
 
 5 Acad., 27th Sept. 1884, p. 203. 
 
TOTEMISM. 65 
 
 We have seen examples of Australian tribes in which 
 members of any clan are free to' marry members of any 
 clan but their own ; but such tribes appear to be excep- 
 tional. Often an Australian tribe is divided into two 
 (exogamous) phratries, each of which includes under it a 
 number of totem clans; and oftener still there are sub- 
 phratries interposed between the phratry and the clans, 
 each phratry including two subphratries. and the sub- 
 phratries including totem clans. We will take examples 
 of the former and simpler organization first. 
 
 The Turra tribe in Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, is divided 
 into two phratries, Wiltu (Eaglehavvk) and Miilta (Seal). The 
 Eaglehawk phratry includes ten totem clans (Wombat, Wallaby, 
 •j Kangaroo, Iguana, Wombat-Snake, Bandicoot, Black Bandicoot, 
 Crow, Rock Wallaby, and Emu); and the Seal phratry includes 
 .six (Wild Goose, Butterfish, Mullet, Schnapper, Shark, and Salmon). 
 The phratries are of course exogamous, but (as with the Choctaws, 
 Mohegan, and, so far as appears, all the American phratries) any 
 clan of the one phratry may intermarry with any clan of the other 
 phratry. 1 Again, the Wotjoballuk tribe in north-western Victoria 
 is divided into two phratries (Krokitch and Gamutch), each of 
 which includes three totem clans ; the rule of intermarriage is the 
 same as before. 2 The Ngarego and Theddora tribes in New South 
 Wales are divided into two phratries, Meriing (Eaglehawk) and 
 Yukembriik (Crow) ; and each phratry includes eight totem clans. 3 
 
 In Australia, as in America, we have an instance of a tribe with 
 its clans arranged in phratries, but with an odd clan unattached 
 to a phratry. This occurs in western Victoria, where there are 
 five totem clans thus arranged : 
 
 First phratry, . I (1) Lon g- Billecl Cockatoo clan. 
 
 1 J I (2) Pelican clan. 
 
 Second phratry, . j (3) Banksian Cockatoo clan. 
 * ( (4) Boa Snake clan. 
 
 (5) Quail clan. 
 
 1 Fison and Howitt, p. 285. 
 
 2 Howitt in Rep. of the Smithson. Inst, for 1883, p. 818. 
 
 3 J. A. I., xiii. p. 437m. 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 TOTEMISM. 
 
 Hero clans 1 and 2 may marry 3, 4, 5 ; 3 and 4 may marry 1, 2, 
 5; 5 may marry 1, 2, 3, 4. 1 
 
 But the typical Australian tribe is divided into two exogamous 
 pliratries; each of these phratries is subdivided into two sub- 
 phratries ; and these subphratries are subdivided into an indefinite 
 number of totem clans. The phratries being exogamous, it follows 
 that their subdivisions (the subphratries and clans) are so also. 
 The well-known Kamilaroi tribe in New South "Wales will serve 
 as an example. Its subdivisions are as follows : 2 — 
 
 Phratries. 
 
 Subphratries. 
 
 Totem Clans. 
 
 Dilbi. | 
 Kupathin. -J 
 
 Muri. 3 1 
 Kubi. I 
 
 Ipai. \ 
 Kumbo. ) 
 
 Kangaroo, Opossum, Bandicoot, Padi- 
 melon, Iguana, Black Duck, Eagle- 
 hawk, Scrub Turkey, Yellow- Fish, 
 Honey-Fish, Bream. 
 
 Emu, Carpet-Snake, Black Snake, 
 Red Kangaroo, Honey, Walleroo, 
 Frog, Cod-Fish. 
 
 In such tribes the freedom of marriage is still more curtailed. 
 A subphratry is not free to marry into either subphratry of the 
 other phratry ; each subphratry is restricted in its choice of partners 
 to one subphratry of the other phratry; Muri can only marry 
 Kumbo, and vice versa ; Kubi can only marry Ipai, and vice versa. 
 Hence (supposing the tribe to be equally distributed between the 
 phratries and subphratries), whereas under the two phratry and 
 clan system a man is free to choose a wife from half the women of 
 the tribe; under the phratry, subphratry, and clan system he is 
 restricted in his choice to one quarter of the women. 
 
 1 Dawson, Austr. Abor., p. 26 sq. 2 J. A. I., xii. 500. 
 
 3 The names of the subphratries here given are the names of the 
 male members of each. There is a corresponding female form for each, 
 formed by the addition of tha to the masculine. Thus Muri — 
 Matha (contracted for Muritha), Kubi— Kuhitha, Ipai— Ipatha, 
 Kumbo — Butha (contracted for Kumbatha) (Fison and Howitt, p. 
 37»). In a tribe of western Victoria the feminine termination is heear 
 (Dawson, Austr. Abor., p. 26) ; in a Queensland tribe it is an (Fison 
 and Howitt, p. 33) ; in some tribes it is un or gun (Ridley in 
 Brough Smyth, ii. p. 288). The tribe at "Wide Bay, Queensland, 
 appears to have five subphratries, with male and female names (Ridley, 
 loc. cit. ). In some tribes the male and female names of the sub- 
 phratries are distinct words (see J. A. I., xiii. pp. 300, 343, 345). In 
 describing the rules of marriage and descent these feminine forms or 
 names are for simplicity's sake omitted. 
 
TOTEMISM. 67 
 
 The Kiabara tribe, south of Maryborough in Queensland, will 
 furnish another example i 1 — 
 
 Phratries. 
 
 Subphratries. 
 
 Totem Clans. 
 
 Dilebi (Flood-Water), j 
 Cubatine (Lightning), -j 
 
 Baring (Turtle). 
 Turowine (Bat). 
 Bulcoin (Carpet-Snake) 
 Bundah (Native Cat). 
 
 |: 
 
 Here Baring marries Buudah, and Turowine marries Bulcoin, 
 and vice versa. 
 
 A remarkable feature of the Australian social organiza- 
 tion is that divisions of one tribe have their recognized 
 equivalents in other tribes, whose languages, including the 
 names for the tribal divisions, are quite different. A 
 native who travelled far and wide through Australia stated 
 that " he was furnished with temporary wives by the 
 various tribes with whom he sojourned in his travels ; that 
 his right to these women was recognized as a matter of 
 course ; and that he could always ascertain whether they 
 belonged to the division into which he could legally marry, 
 ' though the places were 1000 miles apart, and the langu- 
 ages quite different.' " 2 Again, it is said that " in cases of 
 distant tribes it can be shown that the class divisions cor- 
 respond with each other, as for instance in the classes of 
 the Flinders river and Mitchell river tribes ; and these 
 tribes are separated by 400 miles of country, and by many 
 intervening tribes. But for all that, class corresponds to 
 class in fact and in meaning and in privileges, although 
 the name may be quite different and the totems of each 
 dissimilar." 3 Particular information, however, as to the 
 
 1 J. A. I., xiii. 336, 341. 
 
 2 Fison and Howitt, p. 53 sq. ; cf. Brough Smyth, i. p. 91. 
 
 3 J. A. I., xiii. p. 300. 
 
68 T0TEM1SM. 
 
 equivalent divisions is very scanty. 1 Hence it often 
 happens that husband and wife speak different languages 
 and continue to do so after marriage, neither of them ever 
 thinking of changing his or her dialect for that of the 
 other. 2 Indeed, in some tribes of western Victoria a man 
 is actually forbidden to marry a wife who speaks the same 
 dialect as himself ; and during the preliminary visit which 
 each pays to the tribe of the other neither is permitted to 
 speak the language of the tribe whom he or she is visit- 
 ing. 3 This systematic correspondence between the inter- 
 marrying divisions of distinct and distant tribes, with the 
 rights which it conveys to the members of these divisions, 
 points to sexual communism on a scale to which there is 
 
 1 For a few particulars see Fison and Howitt, 38, 40 ; Brough 
 Smyth, ii. 288; /. A. I., xiii. 304, 306, 346, xiv. 348 sq., 351. 
 
 2 Nat. Tr. of S, Austr., p. 249. 
 
 3 Dawson, Austr. Abor., 27, 30 sq. ; of. Fison and Howitt, p. 276. 
 The custom observed in some places of imposing silence on women for 
 a long time after marriage may possibly be a relic of the custom of 
 marrying women of a different tongue [of. Haxthausen, Transkaukasia, 
 i. 200 sq. ; ib., ii. 23 ; Krauss, Siidsl., p. 450; Hahn, Albanes. Sttid., i. 
 147). Hence too perhaps the folk-lore incident of the silent bride (of. 
 Grimm, Kinder und Hausindhrchen, No. 3; Crane, Popular Italian 
 Tales, p. 54 sq. ). In a modern Greek folk-tale which presents some 
 points of resemblance to the legend of Peleus and Thetis the silent 
 bride is a Nereid ; hence Schmidt conjectures with great probability 
 that the expression of Sophocles, quoted by the scholiast on Pindar, 
 Nem., iv. 60 (a<t>66yyovs yd/xovs), means that Thetis was silent during 
 her married life (B. Schmidt, Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 116). 
 Amongst the Caribs the language of the men differed to some extent 
 from that of the women (see Rochefort, Hist, des lies Antilles, p. 350; 
 LaBorde, " Relation de l'origine, &c. , des Caraibes," in Rec. de divers 
 voyages faits en Afr. et en I'Amer., Paris, 1684, pp. 4, 39; Humboldt, 
 Reise in die Aequinoctial-Gegenden des Neuen Continents, iv. 204 sq. 
 (Hauff's German trans.); Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, 
 186 ; Lucien de Rosny, Les lies Antilles,^23, 261). So amongst the 
 Mbayas in Paraguay (Azara, Voyages daAsl'AmSrique Meridionale, 
 ii. p. 106). In the Booandik tribe, Soutlfciustralia, persons con- 
 nected by marriage talk to each other in a Tow whining voice and 
 use words different from those in common use (Mrs James Smith, The 
 Booandik Tribe, p. 5). 
 
TOTEMISM. 69 
 
 perhaps no parallel elsewhere, certainly not in North 
 America, where marriage is always within the tribe, 
 though outside the clan. 1 But even in Australia a man 
 is always bound to marry within a certain kinship group ; 
 that group may. extend across the whole of Australia, but 
 nevertheless it is exactly limited and defined. If endo- 
 gamy is used in the sense of prohibition to marry outside 
 of a certain kinship group, whether that group be exclusive 
 of, inclusive of, or identical with the man's own group, 
 then marriage among the totem societies of Australia, 
 America, and India is both exogamous and endogamous ; 
 a man is forbidden to marry either within his own clan 
 or outside of a certain kinship group. 2 
 
 Native Australian traditions as to the origin of these various 
 tribal divisions, though small credit can be given to them, deserve 
 to be mentioned. The Dieri tribe has a legend that mankind 
 married promiscuously till Muramura (Good Spirit) ordered that 
 the tribe should be divided into branches which were to be called 
 after objects animate and inanimate (dogs, mice, emus, iguanas, 
 rain, &c. ), the memhers of each division being forbidden to inter- 
 marry. 3 The tribes of western Victoria, whose totems are long- 
 billed cockatoo, pelican, banksian cockatoo, boa snake, and quail, 
 say that their progenitor was a long-billed cockatoo who had » 
 banksian cockatoo to wife ; their children, taking their clan from 
 their mother, were Banksian Cockatoos ; but, being forbidden by 
 the laws of consanguinity to marry with each other, they had to 
 introduce "fresh flesh," which could only be done by marriage 
 with strangers ; so they got wives from a distance, and hence the 
 introduction of the pelican, snake, and quail totems. 4 
 
 (3) Rules of Descent. — In a large majority of the totem 
 
 tribes at present known to us in Australia and North 
 
 1 First Rep. , p. 63. Between North-American tribes " there were 
 no intermarriages, no social intercourse, no intermingling of any kind, 
 except that of mortal strife " (Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 45). 
 
 2 Of. First Rep., loc. cit.\ As. Quart. Rev., July 1886, p. 89 sq. 
 
 3 Nat. Tr. o/S. Austr., p. 260 sq. 4 Dawson, Austr. Abor., p. 27. 
 
70 TOTEMISM. 
 
 America descent is in the female line, i.e., the children 
 belong to the totem clan of their mother, not to that of 
 their father. In Australia the proportion of tribes with 
 female to those with male descent is as four to one ; in 
 America it is between three and two to one. The table 
 which follows is a very rough one. For instance, the 
 western Australians, given as one tribe, no doubt include 
 many ; and it is possible that the western Victorian tribes 
 given on Dawson's authority may include some tribes 
 mentioned separately by other authorities. 
 
 Table of Male and Female Descent. 
 
 Australia. — Female Descent. — 1, "West Australians (Grey, 
 Journ., ii. 226; Brough Smyth, ii. 267); 2 and 3, Ngarego and 
 Theddora (/. A. I., xiii. 437); 4, Wakelbura (J. A. L, xii. 43); 
 5, Kunandaburi (ib.); 6, Mukjarawaint (ib.); 7, Yerrunthully 
 (/. A. 1., xiii. 339, 342); 8, Koogo-Bathy (ib., 339, 343); 9, 
 Kombinegherry (ib., 340, 343); 10, Wonghibon (Id., xiv. 348, 
 350); 11, Barknji (ib., 349, 350); 12, Ta-ta-thi (ib.); 13, Eeramin 
 (ib.); 14, Wiraijuri (Id., xiii. 436); 15, Wolgal (ib., 437); 16, 
 "Wotjoballuk (Smithson. Sep. for 1883, p. 818); 16-26, western 
 Victorian tribes, ten in number (Dawson, Aust. Ab., 1 sq., 26) ; 27, 
 Wa-imbio (Fison and Howitt, 291 ; Brough Smyth, i. 86) ; 28, 
 Port Lincoln tribe (Nat. Tr. of S. Aust, 222); 29, Kamilaroi 
 (Fison and Howitt, 43, 68) ; 30, Mount Gambier tribe (ib., 34) ; 31, 
 Darling River tribe (ib.); 32, Mackay tribe, Queensland (ib.). 
 
 Male Descent.— 1, Turra (Fison and Howitt, 285; J. A. I., xii. 
 44); 2, Narrinyeri (J. A. 1., xii. 44, 508; Nat. Tr. of S. Aust., 
 p. 12); 3, Kulin(/. A. I., xii. 44, 507); 4, Aldolinga (/. A. I., xii. 
 506) ; 5, "Wolgal (ib.) ; 6, Ikula— partly male (J. A. I., xii. 509) ; 
 7, Kiabara (J. A. I., xiii. 336, 341); 8, Mycoolon (J. A. I., xiii. 
 339, 343) ; a large tribe or group of tribes (no names given) to the 
 south of the Gulf of Carpentaria (/. A. 1. , xii. 504). The Gourn- 
 diteh-Mara have male descent, but among them the rule of exogamy 
 has disappeared (Fison and Howitt, p. 275 sq. ). 
 
 "With regard to the Kurnai in Victoria, after all the explanations 
 of Messrs Fison and Howitt, it remains uncertain whether descent 
 in that tribe is female or male. The existence of sex totems among 
 
TOTEMISM. 71 
 
 them (which Messrs Fison and Howitt took as evidence that descent 
 was "male as to boys, female as to girls") proves nothing. The 
 tribe is organized in local districts, and apparently a man may take 
 a wife neither from his father's nor his mother's district (Fison and 
 Howitt, p. 226 sq.). How deceitful inferences from local prohibi- 
 tions may be appears from Dawson's account of the western Vic- 
 torian tribes. Among these tribes a, man may not marry into 
 his father's tribe (which seems to be a local division). From this 
 one might infer that descent was male. But in addition to these 
 local exoganious divisions, there are among these tribes totem clans, 
 and children belong to their mother's clan and may not marry into 
 it. Therefore in these tribes descent is after all female (Dawson, 
 Aust. Abor., p. 26). 
 
 America. — Female, Descent. — 1, Thlinkets (A. Krause, Die 
 Tlinket-Ind. , p. 231 sq.); 2, British Columbians (Mayne, Br. 
 Columb., 258); 3, Haidas (Geol. Surv. of Canada, Hep. for 
 1878-79, p. 134b); 4, Loucheux (Smithson. Rep. for 1866, p. 315); 
 5, Kutchin (Dall, Alaska, p. 197); 6, Iroquois (Morgan, League of 
 the Iroquois, 83; Id., A. S., 64); 7, "Wyandots or Hurons (First 
 Report, 60; Morgan, A. S., 153); 8, Bella Coola Indians, British 
 Columbia (Original-Mittheil. , 4c, i. p. 186); 9-17, Creeks, Semi- 
 noles, Hitchetes, Yoochees, Alabamas, Coosatees, Natchez (Gatschet, 
 Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, p. 153 ; Morgan, A. S., 160 
 sq. ; Archwologia Americana, ii. p. 109); 18, 19, Choctaws, 
 Cherokees (Archmol. Amer., loc. cit. ; Morgan, op. cit., 162, 164) 
 20, Lenape or Delawares (Morgan, op. cit, 166, 172); 21, 22 
 Otoes and Missouris (Morgan, op. cit., 156); 23, Mandaus (Morgan 
 op. cit., 158); 24, Minnitarees (ib., 159); 25, Upsarokas or Crow: 
 (ib., 159); 26, Chickasas (ib., 163); 27, Menominces (ib., 170) 
 28, Munsees (ib., 173); 29, Mohegans (ib., 174) ; 30, Pequots (ib.) 
 31, Narragansetts (ib.); 32, Moquis (Bourke, Snake Dance, p. 230) 
 
 33, Goajiros . (Proc. Roy. Geogr. Soc, December 1885, p. 790) 
 
 34, Arawaks (Brett, Ind. Tr. of Guiana, 98 ; Im Thurn, Among 
 the Indians of Guiana, p. 185). 
 
 Male Descent— 1, Omahas (Third Rep., 225; Morgan, op. cit, 
 155); 2, Punkas (Morgan, loc. cit); 3, Iowas (Morgan, 156); 4, 
 Kaws (ib.); 5, Winnebagoes (Id., 157); 6, Ojibways (Id., 166; 
 Collect. Minnesota Eistor. Soc, v. p. 42); 7, Pottawatamies (Morgan, 
 op. cit, 167); 8, Miamis (Id., 168); 9, Shawnees (Id., 169); 10, 
 Sauks and Foxes (Id., 170); 11, Blood Blackfeet (Id., 171); 12, 
 Piegan Blackfeet (ib.); 13, Abenakis (Id., 175). 
 
 As to the totem tribes of Africa, desceut among the Damaras is 
 
72 TOTEMISM. 
 
 in the female line, 1 and there are traces of female kin among the 
 Beehuanas. 2 Among the Bakalai property descends in the male 
 line, but this is not a conclusive proof that descent is so reckoned ; 3 
 all the clans in the neighbourhood of the Bakalai have female 
 descent both for blood and property. 4 In Bengal, where there is a 
 considerable body of totem tribes, Mr Bisley says that after careful 
 search he and his coadjutors have found no tribe with female 
 descent, and only a single trace of it in one. 5 Colonel Dalton, 
 however, states that the Kasias in Bengal are divided into exogam- 
 ous tribes with descent in the female line ; and with regard to this 
 people he mentions, on the authority of Colonel Yule, that " some 
 individuals have a superstitious objection to particular kinds of 
 food, and will not allow such to be brought into their houses. Is 
 not this superstition, " asks Colonel Dalton very properly, "con- 
 nected with their tribal divisions as amongst the Oraons of Chota 
 Nagpur and the Beehuanas of Africa, who cannot eat the animal 
 after which their tribe is named?" At least if this is not totemism, 
 it is uncommonly like it. 6 In the exogamous clans or " mother- 
 hoods " of the Garos in Bengal descent is also in the female line, 
 and some of the Garo legends point to totemism. 7 It is remarkable 
 either that these examples should have been overlooked by Mr 
 Risley and his coadjutors or that both these tribes should have 
 exchanged female for male kinship within the fourteen 8 years 
 which elapsed between the publication of Colonel Dalton's work and 
 Mr Risley's paper. With regard to the other undoubtedly totem 
 tribes of Bengal (Oraons, &c), we may take it on Mr Bisley's 
 authority that descent is in the male line. 
 
 In the Australian tribal organization of two phratries, 
 
 1 Anderson, Lake Ngami, p. 221. 
 
 2 Casalis, TJie Basutos, p. 179 sq. 
 
 3 Because property may descend in the male, while kinship is 
 traced in the female line, as with the natives of western Australia 
 (Grey, Journals, ii. 230, 232 sq. ) and some Victorian tribes (Dawson, 
 Austral. Aborigines, 1, 26). In Mota, Banks Islands, where kinship 
 is traced in the female line, landed property descends in the female 
 line (i.e., to sister's children), but personal property in the male line 
 (i.e., to sons); but the practice is for the sons to redeem the land 
 with the personal property. See the Rev. E. H. Codrington in 
 Trans, and Proc. Roy. Soc. of Victoria, xvi. pp. 119 sq. 
 
 4 Du Chaillu, Journey to Ashango Land, 429 ; Id. , Equat. Afr. , 
 308 sq. 6 As. Quart. Rev., July 1886, p. 94. 
 
 6 Dalton, Ethnol. ofBeng. , p. 56 sq. 7 Dalton, op. cit. , 60, 63. 
 
 Or seven years, if we accept the statements in the Indian Antiquary 
 viii. (1879) p. 205 ; but these may be borrowed from Colonel Dalton. 
 
TOTEMISM. 
 
 73 
 
 four subphratries, and totem clans, there occurs a peculiar 
 form of descent of which no plausible explanation has yet 
 been offered. It seems that in all tribes thus organized 
 the children are born into the subphratry neither of their 
 father nor of their mother, and that descent in such cases 
 is either female or male, according as the subphratry into 
 which the children are born is the companion subphratry 
 of their mother's or of their father's subphratry. In the 
 former case we have what may be called indirect female 
 descent ; in the latter, indirect male descent. But it is 
 only in the subphratry that descent is thus indirect. In 
 the totem clan it is always direct ; the child belongs to 
 the clan either of its mother or of its father. Thus in the 
 typical Australian organization, descent, whether female 
 or male, is direct in the phratry, indirect in the sub- 
 phratry, and direct in the clan. To take examples, the 
 following is the scheme of descent, so far as the phratries 
 and subphratries are concerned, in the Kamilaroi. 
 
 Phratries. 
 
 Male. 
 
 Marries 
 
 Children are 
 
 Dilbi. [ 
 Kupathin. J 
 
 Muri. 
 Kubi. 
 Ipai. 
 Kumbo. 
 
 Kumbo. 
 Ipai. 
 Kubi. 
 Muri. 
 
 Ipai. 
 Kumbo. 
 Muri. 
 Kubi. 
 
 This is an example of indirect female descent, because 
 the children belong to the companion subphratry of their 
 mother, not to the companion subphratry of their father. 
 But in the totems the female descent is direct ; e.g., if 
 the father is Muri-Kangaroo and the mother is Kumbo- 
 Emu, the children will be Ipai-Emu; if the mother is 
 Kumbo-Bandicoot the children will be Ipai-Bandicoot. 1 
 
 1 Fison and Howitt, p. 37 sq.; J. A. I., xiii. 335, 341, 344. 
 
74 
 
 TOTEMISM. 
 
 The following is the scheme of descent in the Kiabara 
 tribe : J — 
 
 Phratries. 
 
 Male. 
 
 Marries 
 
 Children are 
 
 Dilehi. j 
 Cubatine. 4 
 
 Baring. 
 Turowine. 
 Bulcoin. 
 Bundah. 
 
 Bundah. 
 Bulcoin. 
 Turowine. 
 Baring. 
 
 Turowine. 
 Baring. 
 Bundah. 
 Bulcoin. 
 
 This is an example of indirect male descent, because the 
 children belong to the companion subphratry of their 
 father, not to the companion subphratry of their mother. 
 We have no information as to the totems, but on the 
 analogy of indirect female descent we should expect them 
 to be taken from the father. This at any rate is true of a 
 large tribe or group of tribes to the south of the Gulf of 
 Carpentaria ; their rules of marriage and descent, so far as 
 concerns the subphratries, are like those of the Kiabara, 
 and the totems (which at the lower Leichhardt river are 
 the names of fish) are inherited from father to son. 2 
 
 In some Australian tribes sons take their totem from 
 their father and daughters from their mother. Thus the 
 Dieri in South Australia are divided into two phratries, 
 each of which includes under it sixteen totem clans 
 (Caterpillar, Mullet, Dog, Eat, Kangaroo, Frog, Crow, 
 &c.) ; 8 and if a Dog man marries a Eat woman, the sons 
 of this marriage are Dogs and the daughters are Eats. 4 
 The Ikula (Morning Star)' 1 tribe, at the head of the Great 
 Australian Bight, has, with certain exceptions, the same 
 
 1 J. A. I., xiii. 336, 341. 
 
 2 J. A. I., xii. 504. Mr Howitt, to whom we are indebted for this 
 information, omits to give the names of the tribe and its subdivisions. 
 
 s /. A. I., xii. 500. 
 
 4 Letter of Mr S. Gason to the present writer. 
 
TOTEMISM. 
 
 75 
 
 rule of descent. 1 The tribe includes four totem clans, 
 namely, Budera (Root), Kura (Native Dog), Budu 
 (Digger), and Wenung (Wombat). The rules of marriage 
 and descent are as follows : — 
 
 Male. 
 
 Marries 
 
 Children are 
 
 (m.) 2 Budera... \ 
 
 (f.) Kura 
 
 (m.) Budera; (f.) Kura. 
 (m. ) and (f. ) Budera. 
 (m. ) Kuru ; (f . ) Budera. 
 (m.) and (f.) Kura. 
 (m.) Budu; (f.) "Wenung. 
 (m.) Wenung; (f.) Budu. 
 
 or 
 (f. ) Wenung 
 
 or 
 (f.)Budu 
 
 (f.) Budu 
 
 
 
 Here, in all cases except two, the son takes his totem 
 from his father, the daughter from her mother. The ex- 
 ceptions are where Budera (m.) marries Wenung (f.), and 
 where Kura (m.) marries Budu (f.) ; in both which cases 
 the children, whether sons or daughters, take their father's 
 totem. This, combined with the fact that no male of 
 Budu or Wenung is allowed to marry a female of Budera 
 or Kura, points, as Mr Howitt says, to a superiority of 
 Budera and Kura over Budu and Wenung. 
 
 It is obvious that the totems of the Dieri and Ikula are 
 not sex totems. A sex totem is confined to members of 
 one sex j whereas all the totems of the Dieri and Ikula 
 are common to both men and women. It is of these 
 totems (and not of sex totems) that it may be said in the 
 words of Messrs Fison and Howitt, that descent is " male 
 as to boys, female as to girls." 3 
 
 1 J. A. I., xii. 509. 2 m. =male; f. =female. 
 
 3 /. A. I., xii. 45. Tha opposite rule of descent (sons belong to 
 
76 TOTEMISM. 
 
 Besides the tribes whose line of descent is definitely 
 fixed in the female or male line, or, as with the Dieri and 
 Ikula, half-way between the two, there are a number of 
 tribes which are wavering between female and male 
 descent ; amongst whom, in other words, a child may be 
 entered in either his mother's or his father's clan. After 
 the researches of Bachofen, M'Lennan, and Morgan, we 
 may be sure that such a wavering marks a transition from 
 female to male descent, and not conversely. Among the 
 Haidas, children regularly belong to the totem clan of 
 their mother ; but in very exceptional cases, when the 
 clan of the father is reduced in numbers, the newly born 
 child may be given to the father's sister to suckle. It is 
 then spoken of as belonging to the paternal aunt, and is 
 counted to its father's clan. 1 Amongst the Dela wares 
 descent is regularly in the female line ; but it is possible to 
 transfer a child to its father's clan by giving it one of the 
 names which are appropriated to the father's clan. 2 A 
 similar practice prevails with the Shawnees, except that 
 with them male descent is the rule and transference to the 
 mother's clan (or any other clan) by naming is the excep- 
 tion. 3 In the Hervey Islands, South Pacific, the parents 
 settled beforehand whether the child should belong to the 
 father's or mother's clan. The father usually had the pre- 
 ference, but sometimes, when the father's clan was one 
 which was bound to furnish human victims from its ranks, 
 the mother had it adopted into her clan by having the 
 
 the mother's, daughters to the father's family) is observed in the 
 islands of Leti, Moa, and Lakor (Riedel, op. cit., pp. 384, 392). 
 
 1 Oeol. Surv. of Canada, Rep. for 1878-79, p. 134b. 
 
 2 Morgan, A. S., p. 172 sq. 
 
 3 lb., 169. 
 
TOTEMISM. 77 
 
 name of her totem pronounced over it. 1 In Samoa at the 
 birth of a child the father's totem was usually prayed to 
 first ; but if the birth was tedious, the mother's totem was 
 invoked ; and whichever happened to be invoked at the 
 moment of birth was the child's totem for life. 2 
 
 These modes of effecting the change of kin touched only 
 the children ; others affected the children through the 
 mother ; they were transferred to their father's clan by the 
 previous transference of the mother. This, as M'Lennan 
 has observed, was perhaps the intention and doubtless must 
 have been the effect of the custom in Guinea of dedicating 
 one wife to the husband's Bossum or god. 3 The transfer- 
 ence of the wife to the husband's clan seems to have been 
 the intention of smearing bride and bridegroom with each 
 other's blood. 4 Amongst some of the totem clans of 
 Bengal the bride is transferred to the husband's clan by 
 ceremoniously eating or drinking with him. 5 Another 
 mode is to purchase the woman and her offspring. 
 
 1 Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 36. 
 
 2 Turner, Samoa, p. 78 sq. The child might thus be transferred 
 to a clan which was that neither of his father nor of his mother (see 
 above, p. 55). 
 
 3 M'Lennan, Patriarchal Theory, 235 sq. ; Bosman's " Guinea'' in 
 Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, xvi. 420. 
 
 4 Dalton, Eth. ofBeng., p. 220. In some parts of New Guinea bride 
 and bridegroom draw blood from each other's foreheads (S. Miiller, 
 Reizen en Onderzoekingen in den Indischen Archipel, i. p. 105). In 
 Bengal the ceremony appears to have usually degenerated into smearing 
 each other with red lead (Dalton, op. cit, 160, 194, 216, 253, 319). 
 The blood of animals, when used for this purpose, as by the Dyaks, 
 may be a substitute for that of the bride and bridegroom ; possibly it 
 may be the blood of the totem (Perelaer, Ethnogr. Beschrijv. der 
 Dajaks, p. 52 ; Tijdschrift v. Indisehe Taal- land- en Volkenkunde, 
 xxv. (1879), p. 116; Ausland, 16th June 1884, p. 469; Journals of 
 James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, i. p. 2Q4 ; Carl Bock, Read- 
 Hunters of Borneo, p. 222). 
 
 5 Dalton, op. cit, 193, 216; cf. Lewin, Wild Races of South- 
 Eastern India, 177 sq. 
 
78 TOTEMISM. 
 
 Amongst the Banyai on the Zambesi, if the husband gives 
 nothing, the children of the marriage belong to the wife's 
 family ; but if he gives so many cattle to his wife's 
 parents the children are his. 1 In the Watubela Islands 
 between New Guinea and Celebes a man may either pay 
 for his wife before marriage, or he may, without paying, live 
 as her husband in her parents' house, working for her and 
 her parents. In the former case the children belong to 
 him ; in the latter they belong to his wife's family, but he 
 may acquire them subsequently by paying the price. 2 So 
 in Sumatra. 8 Similarly in some Californian tribes, the 
 husband must live with his wife's family and work for 
 them till he has paid the full price for her and her 
 children ; the children of a wife who has not been paid 
 for are regarded as bastards, and treated with contempt. 4 
 
 The couvade or custom in accordance with which the 
 husband takes to his bed and is treated as an invalid when 
 his wife has given birth to a child, is perhaps a fiction 
 intended to transfer to the father those rights over the 
 children which, under the previous system of mother-kin, 
 had been enjoyed by 1 the mother alone. 6 The same may 
 possibly be the intention of the apparently widespread 
 
 1 Livingstone, Travels in S. Afr. , 622 sq. ; cf. M 'Lennan, Patri- 
 archal Theory, 324 sq. 
 
 2 Eiedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Papua en 
 Selebes, 205 sq. 
 
 3 Maraden, Hist, of Sumatra, 257 sq. ; Schreiber, Die Battas in 
 ihrem Verhdltniss zu den Malaien von Sumatra, p. 34 ; Junghuhn, 
 Die Battalander auf Sumatra, ii. 131 sq. 
 
 4 Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 350. 
 
 5 This is the view of Baehofen, Mutterrecht, 255 sq. ; Giraud- 
 Teulon, Les origines du manage et de la famille, 138 sq. ; Post, Die 
 Anfange des Stoats- und Rechtslebens, 18; and (with some limita- 
 tions) Zmigrodzki, Die Mutter bei den VoUeern des arischen Stammes 
 270. 
 
TOTEMISM. 79 
 
 custom of men dressing as women and women as men at 
 marriage. Thus in the Greek island of Cos the bridegroom 
 was attired as a woman when he received his bride. 1 In 
 Central Africa a Masai man dresses as a girl for a month 
 after marriage. 2 Argive brides wore false beards when 
 they slept with their husbands. 3 The Alsatian custom of 
 men dressing as women and women as men at the vintage 
 festival is clearly part of an old marriage ceremony. 4 But 
 perhaps all these mummeries are to be otherwise explained. 
 Lastly, the transference of the child to the father's clan 
 may be the object of a ceremony observed by the Todas 
 in southern India. When the wife has gone seven months 
 with her first child she retires with her husband to the 
 forest, where, at the foot of a tree, she receives from her 
 husband a bow and arrows. She asks him, " What is the 
 name of your bow ? " each clan apparently having a dif- 
 ferent name for its bow. The question and answer are 
 repeated three times. She then deposits the bow and 
 arrows at the foot of the tree. The pair remain on the 
 spot all night, eating a meal in the evening and another in 
 the morning before they return home. 6 
 
 As a'rule, perhaps, members of the same totem clan do not eat 
 each other. To this, however, there are large exceptions. The 
 Kurnai and Maneroo observe the rule, eating their slain enemies 
 but not their slain friends. 6 But tribes about the Gulf of Carpen- 
 
 1 Plutarch, Qu. Or., 58. 
 
 2 J. Thomson, Through Masai Land, 442. 
 
 3 Plutarch, De mul. virt. , 4. 
 
 4 Mannhardt, Der Baumkultus, 314. For forms of marriage as 
 means of communicating fertility to the fields, cf. ib., 480 sq. ; Id. , 
 Mythol. Forsch., 340; Wilken in De Indische Gids, June 1884, pp. 
 958, 962. 
 
 5 Marshall, Travels Among the Todas, 214 sq. The Todas have 
 male descent for themselves, but retain female descent for their sacred 
 cattle {ib., 132). 6 Fison and Howitt, 214, 218, 223 sq. 
 
80 TOTEMISM. 
 
 taria after a battle eat their slain friends but not their enemies; and 
 amongst them children, when they die, are eaten. 1 Some Victorian 
 tribes kill their new-born children, eat them, and give them to their 
 elder children to eat, believing that the latter will thus possess the 
 strength of the babes in addition to their own. 2 In some parts of 
 New South Wales it was the custom for the firstborn child of every 
 woman to be eaten by the tribe as part of a religious ceremony. 3 
 The eating of aged relations 4 is intelligible on the principle that 
 " the life is not allowed to go out of the family. " Some of the Vic- 
 torian tribes, who ate their relations but not their enemies nor 
 members of a different tribe, asserted that they did so, not to 
 gratify their appetites, but only as a symbol of respect and regret 
 for the dead. They only ate the bodies of relations who had died 
 by violence. 6 The Dieri have exact rules according to which they 
 partake of the flesh of dead relations ; the mother eats of her chil- 
 dren and the children eat of their mother ; but the father does not 
 eat of his offspring, nor the offspring of their father. 6 This custom 
 points to the time when the Dieri had female kinship, when there- 
 fore the father, as a member of a different tribe, had no right to 
 partake of his child. The eating of dead relations is parallel to 
 the custom of smearing the person with the juices which exude from 
 their decaying corpses. 7 The object of these and similar ceremonies 
 (see above, p. 45 sq. ) is to keep the life, regarded as incarnate in 
 the body and blood of the kinsmen, within the circle of the kin. 
 Hence in some tribes at circumcision boys are laid on »• platform, 
 formed by the living bodies of the tribesmen, 8 and when the tooth 
 is knocked out they are seated on the shoulders of men on whose 
 breast the blood flows and is not wiped away. 9 The blood of the 
 tribe is not allowed to be spilt on the ground, but is received on 
 the bodies of tribesmen. Bleeding is a native Australian cure for 
 headache, &c. ; but in performing the operation they are very careful 
 
 1 /. A. I., xiii. 283. 2 Trans. Bthn. Soc, new series, i. 289. 
 
 3 Brongh Smyth, ii. 311. 
 
 1 For examples, see Journals of James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, 
 i. p. 209; Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, I. 
 i. 12; Riedel, o#. cit., p. 267; Herodotus, iv. 26; Mela, II. i. 9. 
 
 6 Dawson, Austr. Abor., 67. 
 
 6 Nat. Tr. of S. Australia, p. 274. 
 
 7 Fison and Howitt, 243 sq. ; Riedel, op. cit., p. 308. 
 
 8 Nat. Tr. of S. Austr., 230; Brough Smyth, i. 75«; Eyre, 
 Journals, ii. p. 335. 
 
 9 Collins, Account of the English Colony of N. S. W., London, 
 1798, p. 580. 
 
TOTEMISM. 81 
 
 not to spill any of the blood on the ground, but sprinkle it on 
 each other. 1 Similarly when bleeding is done as a means of pro- 
 ducing rain, the blood is made to flow on men, not on the ground. 2 
 Another form of transferring the blood, i.e., the life of the kin, is 
 seen in an Australian funeral ceremony; the relations gash them- 
 selves over the corpse till it and the grave are covered with their 
 blood ; this is said to strengthen the dead man and enable him 
 to rise in another country. 3 Among some South American tribes 
 the bones of deceased relations are ground into powder, mixed 
 with a liquid, and so swallowed. 4 
 
 When a North American tribe is on the march, the members of 
 each totem clan camp together, and the clans are arranged in a 
 fixed order in camp, the whole tribe being arranged in a great 
 circle or in several concentric circles. 5 When the tribe lives in 
 settled villages or towns, each clan has its separate ward. 6 
 The clans of the Osages are divided into war clans and peace clans ; 
 when they are out on the buffalo hunt, they camp on opposite sides 
 of the tribal circle ; and the peace clans are not allowed to take 
 animal life of any kind ; they must therefore live on vegetables 
 unless they can obtain meat in exchange for vegetables from the 
 war clans. 7 Members of the same clan are buried together and 
 apart from those of other clans; hence the remains of husband 
 and wife, belonging as they do to separate elans, do not rest 
 together. 8 It is remarkable that among the Thlinkets the body 
 
 1 Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, 
 i. 110 sq. 
 
 2 Nat. Tr. of S. Aust., 111. 
 
 " Brough Smyth, ii. 274; Grey, Journ., ii. 332; J. A. I., xiii. 
 134 sq. 
 
 4 J. G. Miiller, Gesch. der Amerik. Urreligionen, 289 sq. ; A. R. 
 Wallace, Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, p. 498. Artemisia 
 drank the ashes of Mausolus (Aulus Genius, x. 18 ; Valerius Maxi- 
 mus, iv. 6, 5). On the question of American cannibalism, cf. Miiller, 
 op. cit., p. 144 sq. ; R. I. Dodge, Hunting Grounds of tlie Great 
 West, p. 420. 
 
 6 First Rep., 64; Third Rep., 219 sq. ; American Naturalist, 
 xviii. p. 113 sq. 
 
 6 Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, 154; Bourke, 
 Snake Dance, 229; Acad., 27th Sept. 1884, p. 203. 
 
 7 The Bev. J. Owen Dorsey in American Naturalist, xviii. p. 113. 
 
 8 Adair, Hist. Amer. Ind., 183 sq.; Morgan, A. S., 83 sq. ; Brinton, 
 The Lenape and their Legends, 54 ; Id. , Myths of the New World, 
 87ra ; A. Hodgson, Letters from North America, i. p. 259 ; Dalton, 
 Eth. of Beng., 56 ; cf. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage 
 in Early Arabia, 315 sq. 
 
 F 
 
82 TOTEMISM. 
 
 must always be carried to the funeral pyre and burned by men of 
 another totem, 1 and the presents distributed on these occasions by 
 the representatives of the deceased must always be made to men 
 of a different clan. 2 
 
 Here we must revert to the religious side of totemism, 
 
 in order to consider some facts which have emerged from 
 
 the study of its social aspect. "We have seen that some 
 
 phratries, both in America and Australia, bear the names 
 
 of animals ; 3 and in the case of the Thlinkets and Mohegans 
 
 we have seen reason to believe that the animals which 
 
 give their names to the phratries were once clan totems. 
 
 The same seems to hold of the names of the Australian 
 
 phratries, Eaglehawk, Crow, and Seal, or at least of the 
 
 two former. For Eaglehawk and Crow are clan totems 
 
 in other tribes, and are, besides, important figures in 
 
 Australian mythology. 
 
 Eaglehawk and Crow, as names of phratries, " extended over a 
 large part of Victoria and over the greater part of the extreme west 
 of New South "Wales." 4 They are clan totems of the Dieri in 
 South Australia, 5 the Mukjarawaint in western Victoria, 6 and the 
 Ta-ta-thi and the Keramiu tribes in New South "Wales. 7 The 
 eaglehawk is besides a clan totem of the Kamilaroi in New Soutli 
 "Wales, 8 the Mycoolon in Queensland, 9 the Barinji in New South 
 "Wales, 10 and the Kuinmurbura in Queensland. 11 The crow is 
 further a clan totem of the Turra tribe, 12 and the Mount Gambier 
 tribe in South Australia, 13 the Kunandabiiri in Queensland, 14 and 
 
 1 Holmberg, op. tit., 324. 
 
 2 Krause, Die TlinMt-Indianer, 223. 
 
 3 As among the CMckasas, Thlinkets, and Mohegans in America; 
 and the Turra, Ngarego, and Theddora tribes in Australia (see 
 above, pp. 61 sq., 65). The subphratries of the Kiabara also bear 
 animal names. See above, p. 67. 
 
 4 J. A. I., xiii. 437, n. 1; Fison and Howitt, 322. 
 
 6 J. A. I., xii. 500; Id., xiii. 338. 6 Id., xii. 45. 
 
 7 Id., xiv. 349. 8 Id., xii. 500, xiii. 335. 
 '■> Id., xiii. 303, 339. 10 Id., xiv. 348. 
 
 11 Id., xiii. 336, 344. 12 Id., xii. 45. 
 
 13 Fison and Howitt, 168 14 /. A. I., xii. 45, xiii. 338. 
 
TOTEMISM. 83 
 
 of the Wonghibon in New South Wales. 1 Among the Dieri the 
 eaglehawk was supposed to inflict a penalty for violating a rule in 
 connexion with the knocking out the teeth at initiation. 2 Among 
 the Kurnai the eaglehawk is greatly reverenced; his plumes and 
 talons were used in necromancy ; and he figures in their stories in 
 company with the little owl. 3 The Kurnai also reverence the crow 
 as one of their ancestors, 4 and consult it as a bird of omen. 6 
 According to a Victorian myth, the crow and the eaglehawk were 
 the progenitors, or among the progenitors, of the human race, and 
 now shine as stars in the sky. 6 According to another Victorian 
 myth the eagle and the crow were the creators of the world, and 
 divided the Murray blacks into two classes (clans or phratries), the 
 Eaglehawk and Crow. 7 
 
 Further, there are traces in Australia of the splitting of totems. 
 Thus in the Ta-ta-thi tribe in New South Wales there are two 
 Eaglehawk elans, namely the Light Brown Eaglehawk and the 
 Brown Coloured Eaglehawk, one in each of the two phratries. 8 
 Amongst the Kamilaroi there is a Kangaroo clan and a Red 
 Kangaroo clan, one in each of the two phratries. 9 In the 
 Kunandabiiri tribe in Queensland there are totem clans — Brown 
 Snake, Speckled Brown Snake, Carpet-Snake, also Rat, Kangaroo 
 Rat, and Bush Rat. 10 In the MtLkjarawaint in western Victoria 
 there are White Cockatoo and Black Cockatoo, also Buff-coloured 
 Snake and Black Snake ; u in other Victorian tribes there are the 
 Long-Billed Cockatoo and the Banksian Cockatoo ; 12 in the 
 Wakelbiira in Queensland there are Large Bee and Small Bee in 
 different phratries ; 13 in the Mycoolon there are Whistling Duck 
 and Black Duck. 14 
 
 From all this we should infer that the objects from 
 which the Australian phratries take their names were once 
 totems. But there seems to be direct evidence that both . 
 the phratries and subphratries actually retain, at least in 
 some tribes, their totems. Thus the Port Mackay tribe in 
 
 1 Id., xiv. 348. 2 Nat. Tr. of S. Austr., 267. 
 
 3 Fison and Howitt, 323. * J. A. I., xv. 415. 
 
 6 Id., xvi. 46. 6 Brough Smyth, i. 431. 
 
 7 Id., i. 423 s?. o .A .4. /., xiv. 349. 
 9 Id., xii. 500. w J. A. I., xii. 45. 
 
 11 lb 12 Dawson, Austr. Abor., p. 26. 
 
 13 J. A. I., xiii. 337. 14 lb., 339. 
 
84 TOTEMISM. 
 
 Queensland is divided into two phratries, Yungaru and 
 Wutaru, with, subphratries Gurgela, Burbia, Wungo, and 
 Kubera ; and the Yungaru phratry has for its totem the 
 alligator, and Wutaru the kangaroo ; 1 while the sub- 
 phratries have for their totems the emu (or the carpet 
 snake), iguana, opossum, and kangaroo (or scrub turkey). 2 
 As the subphratries of this tribe are said to be equivalent 
 to the subphratries of the Kamilaroi, it seems to follow 
 that the subphratries 3 of the Kamilaroi (Muri, Kubi, Ipai, 
 and Kumbo) have or once had totems also. Hence it ap- 
 pears that in tribes organized in phratries, subphratries, 
 and clans, each man has three totems — hisjDhra-tryJtotem, 
 '•'his sub phratry totem, and his clan totem. If we add a 
 sex totem and an individual totem, each man in the typical 
 Australian tribe has five distinct kinds of totems. What 
 degree of allegiance he owes to his subphratry totem and 
 phratry totem respectively we are not told ; indeed, the 
 very existence of such totems, as distinct from clan totems, 
 appears to have been generally overlooked. But we may 
 suppose that the totem bond diminishes in strength in 
 proportion to its extension; that therefore the clan totem 
 is the primary tie, of which the subphratry and phratry 
 totems are successively weakened repetitions. 
 
 1 Fison and Howitt, 38 sq., 40. The Rockhampton tribe (Queens- 
 land) has the same phratries, but its subphratries are different 
 (/. A. 1., xiii. 336). 
 
 2 Fison and Howitt, p. 41. The totems of the phratries and sub- 
 phratries are given by different authorities, who write the native names 
 of the subphratries differently. But they seem to be speaking of the 
 same tribe; at least Mr Fison understands them so. 
 
 8 The names of the Kamilaroi phratries, Dilbi and Kupathin, are 
 clearly identical with Dilebi and Cubatine, the names of the Kiabara 
 phratries (see above, p. 67), and the latter mean Flood-water and 
 Lightning. Are these phratric totems both of the Kamilaroi and 
 Kiabara ? 
 
TOTEMISM. 
 
 85 
 
 In these totems superposed on totems may perhaps be 
 discerned a rudimentary classification of natural objects 
 under heads which bear a certain resemblance to genera, 
 species, &c. This classification is by some Australian tribes 
 extended so as to include the whole of nature. Thus the 
 Port Mackay tribe in Queensland (see above, p. 83 sq.) di- 
 vides all nature between the phratries ; the wind belongs to 
 one phratry and the rain to another ; the sun is Wutaru and 
 the moon is Yungaru ; the stars, trees, and plants are also 
 divided between the phratries. 1 As the totem of Wutaru 
 is kangaroo and of Yungaru alligator, this is equivalent to 
 making the sun a kangaroo and the moon an alligator. 
 
 The Mount Gambier tribe in South Australia is divided into two 
 phratries (Kumi and Kroki), which agaiD are subdivided into totem 
 clans. Everything in nature belongs to a totem clan, thus : 2 — ■ 
 
 Phratries 
 
 Totem Clans. 
 
 Includes 
 
 Kumi. •« 
 Kroki. ■ 
 
 I 
 
 1. Miila=Fish-Hawk. 
 
 2. Parangal = Pelican. 
 
 3. Wa=Crow. 
 
 4. WIla=Black Cockatoo. 
 
 5. Karato=A harmless Snake. 
 
 1. Werio= Tea-Tree. 
 
 2. Murna=An edible Koot. 
 
 3. Karaal= Black crestless Cock- 
 
 atoo. 
 
 Smoke, honeysuckle, trees, &c. 
 
 /Dogs, blackwood trees, fire, frost 
 
 1 (fern.) 
 
 /Rain, thunder, lightning, winter, 
 
 \ hail, clouds, &c. 
 
 Stars, moon, &c. 
 
 / Fish, stringybark trees, seals, 
 
 \ eels, <fcc. 
 
 Ducks, wallabies, owls, cray-fish, &c. 
 
 /Bustards, quails, dolvich (a small 
 
 1 kangaroo). 
 
 J Kangaroo, sheoak trees, summer, 
 
 \ sun, autumn (fem.), wind (fern.). 
 
 With reference to this classification Mr D. S. Stewart, the 
 authority for it, says, " I have tried in vain to find some reason for 
 the arrangement. I asked, 'To what division does a bullock 
 belong ? ' After a pause came the answer, ' It eats grass : it is 
 Boortwerio. ' I then said, ' A cray-fish does not eat grass ; why is 
 it Boortwerio?' Then came the standing reason for all puzzling 
 questions : V That is what our fathers said it was. ' '\ 3 Mr Stewart's 
 
 1 Brough Smyth, i. 91; Fison and Howitt, 168; cf. J. A. I., 
 xiii. 300. 
 
 2 Fison and Howitt, loo. cit. 3 Fison and Howitt, 169. 
 
86 TOTEMISM. 
 
 description of the respect paid by a tribesman to the animals of 
 the same "subdivision" as himself has been already quoted (see 
 above, p. 7) ; it seems to imply that a man is debarred from 
 killing not only his clan totem (when that is an animal) but also 
 all the animals which are classed under his clan. The natural 
 objects thus classed under and sharing the respect due to the totem 
 may be conveniently called, as Mr Howitt proposes, 1 subtotems. 
 Again, the Wakelbnra tribe (Elgin Downs, Queensland) is divided 
 into two phratries (Mallera and Wuthera), four subphratries 
 (Kurgila, Banbe, Wungo, and Obu), and totem clans. Everything 
 in nature is classed under its phratry and subphratry. Thus the 
 broad-leaved box-tree is of the Mallera phratry and the Banbe sub- 
 phratry, and so is the dingo or native dog. When a man of this 
 tribe dies his corpse must be covered with the boughs of a tree 
 which belongs to the same phratry and subphratry as himself ; 
 thus if he is Mallera-Banbe he is covered with boughs of the 
 broad-leaved box- tree, for it also is Mallera-Banbe. 3 So in sum- 
 moning an assembly the message stick carried by the messenger 
 must be of the same tribal division as the sender and the bearer of 
 the message. 3 Of a group of tribes in N. S. Wales it is said that 
 everything in nature is divided among the tribesmen, some claiming 
 the trees, others the plains, others the sky, stars, wind, rain, and 
 so forth. 4 Again, the Wotjoballuk tribe in north-western Victoria 
 has a system of subtotems, thus : 5 — 
 
 Phratries. 
 
 Totem Clans. 
 
 Subtotems. 
 
 Krokitch. i 
 Ganmtch. J 
 
 1. Hot Wind. 
 
 2. White crestless Cockatoo. 
 
 3. Belonging to the Sun. 
 
 4. Deaf Adder. 
 
 5. Black Cockatoo. 
 
 6. Pelican. 
 
 Each totem has subordinate to it 
 a number of objects, animal or 
 vegetable } e.g., kangaroo } red 
 gum-tree, <fec. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Of the subtotems in this tribe Mr Howitt says, " They appear to 
 me to be totems in a state of development. Hot wind has at least 
 five of them, white cockatoo has seventeen, and so on for the others. 
 That these subtotems are now in process of gaining a sort of inde- 
 pendence may be shown by the following instance': a man who is 
 Krokitch-Wartwut (hot wind) claimed to own all the five subtotems 
 of hot wind (three snakes and two birds), yet of these there was 
 
 1 In Smithson. Rep. for 1883, p. 818. 
 
 2 /. A. I., xiii. 191, 337. 3 lb., 438)!. 
 
 4 /. A. I., xiv. 350. 6 SmitJison. Rep., loc. cit. 
 
TOTEMISM. 87 
 
 one which he specially claimed as " belonging " to him, namely, 
 Moiwuk (carpet-snake). Thus his totem, hot wind, seems to have 
 been in process of subdivision into minor totems, and this man's 
 division might have become hot wind carpet-snake had not 
 civilization rudely stopped the process by almost extinguishing 
 the tribe." 
 
 Combining this important evidence as to the growth of 
 totems with the evidence already noticed of the process by 
 which clans tend to become phratries, we get a view of the 
 growth, maturity, and decay of totems. As subtotems 
 they are growing ; as clan totems they are grown ; as sub- 
 phratric and phratric totems they are in successive stages ! 
 of decay. As fast as one totem attains its full develop-^ 
 ment, and then, beaten out thinner and thinner, melts into 
 the vast reservoir of nature from which it sprang, it is ! 
 followed at equal intervals by another and another ; till 
 all things in nature are seen to be, as it were, in motion, 
 and after a period of mustering and marshalling to fall 
 into their places in the grand totem march. 1 
 
 When, through the change of female to male kinship, and 
 the settlement of a tribe in fixed abodes, society has ceased 
 to present the appearance of a constantly shifting kaleido- 
 scope of clans, and has shaken down into a certain stability 
 and permanence of form, it might be expected that with 
 the longer memory which accompanies an advance in 
 culture the totems which have been generalized into the 
 divinities of larger groups should no longer pass into 
 oblivion, but should retain ah elevated rank in the religious 
 hierarchy, with the totems of the subordinate tribal divi- 
 sions grouped under them either as subordinate divinities 
 
 1 In America, as in Australia, the totems seem always to have been 
 in a state of flux. Mr Beauchamp has shown this for the Iroquois 
 {American Antiquarian, viii. 82 s^.). 
 
88 TOTEMISM. 
 
 or as different manifestations of the general tribal gods. 
 This appears to have been the state of totemism in Poly- 
 nesia, where geographical conditions favoured an isolation 
 and hence a permanence of the local groups such as was 
 scarcely attainable by savages on the open plains of Aus- 
 tralia or the prairies and savannahs of America. 1 Hence 
 in Polynesia we find a. considerable approximation to a 
 totem Olympus. In Samoa there were general village 
 gods as well as gods of particular families; and the same 
 deity is incarnate in the form of different animals. One 
 god, for example, is incarnate in the lizard, the owl, and 
 the centipede; 2 another in the bat, domestic fowl, pigeon, 
 and prickly sea urchin; 3 another in the bat, the sea-eel, the 
 cuttle-fish, the mullet, and the turtle ; 4 another in the owl 
 and the mullet; 5 another in the bird Porphyris Samoensis, 
 the pigeon, the rail-bird, and the eel; 6 another in the turtle, 
 sea-eel, octopus, and garden lizard. 7 It seems a fair 
 conjecture that such multiform deities are tribal or phratric 
 totems, with the totems of the tribal or phratric sub- 
 divisions tacked on as incarnations. |As the attribution of 
 human qualities to the totem is of the essence of totemism, 
 it is plain that a deity generalized from or including under 
 him a number of distinct animals and plants must, as his 
 animal and vegetable attributes contradict and cancel each 
 other, tend more and more to throw them off and to retain 
 
 1 Mr Horatio Hale says that the American totem clans " were not 
 permanent, but were constantly undergoing changes, forming, dividing, 
 coalescing, vanishing" (H. Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, p. 51). 
 On the rapid disintegration of North American tribes whenever ex- 
 ternal pressure is removed, see Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 45 sq. 
 
 2 Turner, Samoa, 46 sq. s lb., 51. 
 
 4 lb., 56 sq. 8 lb., 60 sq. 
 
 6 lb., 64 sq. 7 lb., 72. 
 
TOTEMISM. 89 
 
 only those human qualities which to the savage apprehen- 
 sion are the common element of all the totems whereof he 
 is the composite product. In short, the tribal totem tends 
 to pass into an anthropomorphic god. And as he rises 
 more and more into human form, so the subordinate 
 totems sink from the dignity of incarnations into the 
 humbler character of favourites and clients ; until, at a 
 later age, the links which bound them to the god having 
 wholly faded from memory, a generation of mythologists 
 arises who seek to patch up the broken chain by the cheap 
 method of symbolism.- But symbolism is only the decorous 
 though transparent veil which a refined age loves to throw 
 over its own ignorance of the past, f 
 
 Apart from the social changes which have favoured the 
 passage of totemism into a higher form of faith, we can 
 detect in the totemic philosophy itself some advances 
 towards the formation of a deity distinct from and superior 
 to all the individuals of the totem species. Thus some 
 North American Indians think that each species of animal 
 has an elder brother, who is the origin of all the animals 
 of the species, and is besides marvellously great and 
 powerful. The elder brothers of birds are in the sky ; 
 the elder brothers of animals are in the waters. 1 The 
 Patagonians, who are divided into clans of the Tiger, Lion, 
 Guanoco, Ostrich, and so on, think that these clans have 
 each its appropriate deity living in vast caverns under- 
 ground, with whom the souls of dead clansmen go to dwell. 2 
 The Peruvians thought that " of all the beasts of the earth, 
 
 1 Rel. des Jes., 1634, 13; cf. Lettr. tdif., vi. 334; Charlevoix, 
 Hist, de la Jfom. Fr., v. 443, vi. 78. 
 
 2 T. Falkner, Description of Patagonia (Hereford, 1774), p. 114. j 
 
90 TOTEMISM. 
 
 there is one alone in heaven like unto them, that which 
 hath care of their procreation and increase." 1 In all such 
 views the strict totemic standpoint is abandoned. ( Pure 
 totemism is democratic ; it is a religion of equality and 
 fraternity ; one individual of the totem species is as good 
 as another. When, therefore, one individual of the totem 
 species is, as elder brother, guardian spirit, or what not, 
 raised to a position of superiority over all the rest, totemism 
 is practically given up, and religion, like society, is advanc- 
 ing to the monarchical stage.| 
 
 While totemism as a religion tends to pass into the 
 worship first of animal gods and next of anthropomorphic 
 gods with animal attributes, totem clans tend, under the 
 same social conditions, to pass into local clans. Amongst 
 the Kurnai, shut in between the mountains and the sea, 
 phratries and clans have been replaced by exogamous local 
 groups, which generally take their names from the districts, 
 but in some cases from men of note. 2 The Coast Murring 
 tribe in New South Wales has also substituted exogamous 
 local groups for kinship divisions; but, though their totems 
 are decadent and anomalous, they still keep a dying grip 
 on the people, for a man cannot marry a woman of the 
 permitted locality if she is of the same totem as himself. 3 
 
 The totem clans of the Bechuanas have made some pro- 
 gress towards becoming local groups ; for the clans as a 
 rule keep together in their own districts, which are known 
 accordingly as " the dwelling of the men of the chamois,'' 
 " the abode of the men of the monkey, &c." 4 In America, 
 
 1 Acosta, History of the Indies, ii. p. 305 (Hakluyt Society). 
 
 2 Fison and Howitt, 224 sq. 3 J. A. I., xiii. 437. 
 4 Casalis, The Basutos, p. 212. 
 
TOTEMISM. 91 
 
 if we cannot detect the substitution of local for kindred 
 groups, we can at least see a step towards it in that relaxa- 
 tion of the rule of exogamy which has been observed in 
 widely separated tribes. For example, among the Omahas, 
 who have male descent, a man may marry a woman of the 
 same totem as himself provided she be of another tribe. 1 
 
 Geographical Diffusion of Totemism. — In Australia 
 totemism is almost universal. 2 In North America it may 
 be roughly said to prevail, or have prevailed, among all the 
 tribes east of the Eocky Mountains, 8 and among all the 
 Indian (but not the Eskimo) tribes on the north-west coast 
 as far south as the United States frontier. On the other 
 hand, highly competent authorities have failed to find it 
 among the tribes of western Washington, north-western 
 Oregon, and California. 4 In Panama it exists apparently 
 
 1 Third Rep., 257. For general statements of the relaxation of 
 exogamy, see Baer and Helmersen, Beitr. z. Kenntn. des russischen 
 Reiches, i. 104 ; P. Jones, Hist. Ojebway Indians, 138 ; Collect. 
 Minnesota Hist. Soc., v. p. 42; Smithson. Rep . for 1866, 315 ; Dall, 
 Alaska, 196 sq.; Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, 175. 
 The Dacotas (Sioux) seem to have lost the totem system since 1767 
 (see Morgan, A. S., 154; J. Carver, Travels, 255 sq., London, 1781 ; 
 Keating, Expedition to the Source of the Missouri River, ii. 157; 
 James in Tanner's Narrative, 313 sq.; Collect. Minnes. Hist. Soc., 
 v. p. 43). In Australia, though the exogamy of the clan seems to 
 remain intact, the exogamy of the subphratry is relaxed in the case 
 (apparently exceptional) of the Kamilaroi permission to marry a half 
 sister on the father's side (see Fison and Howitt, p. 42 sq.). 
 
 2 Perhaps the only known exceptions are the Kurnai in eastern, 
 and the Gournditch-mora in western Victoria. For the latter see 
 Fison and Howitt, p. 275. Of the aborigines on the lower Murray it 
 is said that " they are not divided into clans, castes, or grades, but 
 live on a footing of perfect equality " (Beveridge in Trans. Roy. Soc. 
 Victoria, vi. p. 21). But probably this does not exclude the existence 
 of totem clans. 
 
 3 Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, 153; H. Hale, 
 Tlie Iroquois Rook of Rites, p. 51. 
 
 i George Gibbs in Contrib. to N. American Eihnol., i. 184; S. 
 Powers, Tr. of Calif., 5. 
 
92 TOTEMISM. 
 
 among the Guaymies : each tribe, family, and individual 
 has a guardian animal, the most prevalent being a kind of 
 parrot. 1 In South America totemism is found among the 
 Goajiros on the borders of Colombia and Venezuela, 2 the 
 Arawaks in Guiana, 3 the Bosch negroes also in Guiana, 4 
 and the Patagonians. 5 Finding it at such distant points of 
 the continent, we should expect it to be widely prevalent ; 
 but with our meagre knowledge of the South American 
 Indians this is merely conjecture. The aborigines of Peru 
 and the Salivas on the Orinoco believed in the descent of 
 their tribes from animals, plants, and natural objects, such 
 as the sun and earth ; 6 but this, though a presumption, is 
 not a proof of totemism. 
 
 In Africa we have seen that totemism prevails in Sene- 
 gambia, among the Bakalai on the equator, and among the 
 Damaras and Bechuanas in southern Africa. 7 There are 
 traces of totemism elsewhere in Africa. In Ashantee dif- 
 ferent animals are worshipped in different districts, which 
 points to totemism. 8 In eastern Africa the Gallas are 
 divided into two exogamous sections and have certain for- 
 
 1 A. Pinart in Revue d' ' Ethnographie, vi. p. 36. 
 
 2 Simons in Proc. R. Geoff. &oc., Dec. 1885, pp. 786, 796. 
 
 3 Brett, Ind. Tribes of Guiana, 98 ; Im Thurn, Among the Indians 
 of Guiana, 175 sq. 
 
 4 Crevaux, Voyages dans VAmerique dv, Sud, p. 59. One clan has 
 the red ape for its totem, others the turtle, crocodile, &c. 
 
 6 Palkner, Descr. of Patagonia, 114. 
 
 6 Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, pt. 
 i. bk. i. chs. 9, 10, 11, 18 ; Gumilla, Hist, de VOrenoque, i. 
 175 sq. 
 
 7 Revue d'Mhnologie, iii. 396 sq., v. 81 ; Du Chaillu, Equat. Afr., 
 308 sq. ; Id., Journey to Ashango Land, 427, 429 ; C. J. Anderson, 
 Lake Ngami, 221 sq. ; Livingstone, Trav. in S. Africa, 13 ; Casalis, 
 The Basutos, 211 ; J. Mackenzie, Ten Tears North of the Orange 
 River, 393 ; J. A. I., xvi. 83 sq. 
 
 8 Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, ed. 1873, p. 216. 
 
TOTEMISM. 93 
 
 bidden foods. 1 In Abyssinia certain districts or families 
 will not eat of certain animals or parts of animals. 2 The 
 territory of the Hovas in Madagascar is divided and sub- 
 divided into districts, the names of the subdivisions re- 
 ferring " rather to clans and divisions of people than to 
 place." One of these names is " the powerful bird," i.e., 
 either the eagle or the vulture. The same clan is found 
 occupying separate districts. 3 One Madagascar tribe regard 
 a species of lemur as " an embodiment of the spirit of their 
 ancestors, and therefore they look with horror upon killing 
 them." 4 Other Malagasy tribes and families refrain from 
 eating pigs and goats; 6 others will not eat certain vegetables 
 nor even allow them to be carried into their houses. 6 The 
 only occasion when the Sakalava tribe in Madagascar kill 
 a bull is at the circumcision of a child, who is placed on 
 the bull's back during the customary invocation. 7 
 
 In Bengal, as we have seen, there are numerous totem 
 tribes among the non-Aryan races. In Siberia the Yakuts 
 are divided into totem clans ; the clansmen will not kill 
 their totems (the swan, goose, raven, &c.) ; 8 and the clans 
 are exogamous. 9 The Altaians, also in Siberia, are divided 
 into twenty-four clans, which, though interfused with each 
 
 1 Charles New, Life, Wanderings, and Ldbows in Eastern Africa, 
 272, 274. 
 
 2 Mansfield Parkyns, Life in Abyssinia, 293; Tr. Ethnol. Soc., 
 new series, vi. 292. 
 
 3 Ellis, Hist, of Madagascar, i. 87. 
 
 4 Folk-Lore Record, ii. 22. 5 lb. 
 
 6 lb., 30. 7 H., iv. 45. 
 
 8 Strahlenberg, Description of the North and Eastern Parts of 
 Europe and Asia, but more particularly of Russia, Siberia, and 
 Great Tartary, London, 1738, p. 383. 
 
 9 Middendorf, Siber. Reise, p. 72, quoted by Lubbock, Origin of 
 Civilization, p. 135. The present writer has been unable to find the 
 passage of Middendorf referred to. 
 
94 TOTEMISM. 
 
 other, retain strongly the clan feeling ; the clans are ex- 
 ogamous ; each has its own patron divinity and religious 
 ceremonies ; and the only two names of clans of these and 
 kindred tribes of which the meanings are given are names 
 of animals. 1 There are traces of totemism in China. 2 In 
 Polynesia it existed, as we have seen, in Samoa. In 
 Melanesia it appears in Fiji, 3 the New Hebrides, 4 and 
 the Solomon Islands. 5 Amongst the Dyaks there are 
 traces of totemism in the prohibition of the flesh of certain 
 animals to certain tribes, respect for certain plants, &c. 6 
 It exists in the islands of Ambon, Uliase, Leti, Moa, 
 Lakor, Keisar (Makisar), Wetar, and the Aaru and Babar 
 archipelagoes. 7 In the Philippine Islands there are traces 
 of it in the reverence for certain animals, the belief that 
 the souls of ancestors dwell in trees, &c. 8 
 
 With regard to ancient nations, totemism may be re- 
 garded as certain for the Egyptians, and highly probable 
 for the Semites, 9 Greeks, and Latins. If proved for one 
 Aryan people, it might be regarded as proved for all; since 
 
 1 W. Badloff, Aus Siberien, i. 216, 258. The Ostiaks, also in 
 Siberia, are divided into exogamous clans, and they reverence the bear 
 (Castren, Vorleswngen ueber die Altaischen Vblker, 107, 115, 117). 
 This, however, by no means amounts to a proof of totemism. 
 
 2 Morgan, A. 8., p. 364 sq. One of the aboriginal tribes of China 
 worships the image of a dog (Gray, China, ii. 306). 
 
 3 Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, ed. I860, i. 219 sq. 
 
 4 Turner, Samoa, 334. e Fison and Howitt, p. 37 n. 
 
 6 Low, Sarawak, 265 sq., 272-27 '4, 306; Journal of Vie Indian 
 Archipelago, iii. p. 590; St John, Life in the Forests of the Far Bast, 
 i. 186 sq., 203; cf. Wilken in hid. Gids, June 1884, p. 988 sq ■ 
 Ausland, 16th June 1884, p. 470. 
 
 7 Eiedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Papua en Selebes 
 pp. 32, 61, 253, 334, 341, 376 sq., 414, 432. 
 
 8 Blumentritt, Der Ahnencultus und die religibsen Anschauungen 
 der Malaien des Philippinen Archipel, 159 sq. 
 
 9 See W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early 
 Arabia. 
 
TOTEMISM. 95 
 
 totemism could scarcely have been developed by any one 
 Aryan branch after the dispersion, and there is no evid- 
 ence or probability that it ever was borrowed. Prof. 
 Sayce finds totemism among the ancient Babylonians, but 
 his evidence is not conclusive. 1 
 
 Origin of Totemism. — No satisfactory explanation of the 
 origin of totemism has yet been given. Mr Herbert 
 Spencer finds the origin of totemism in a " misinterpreta- 
 tion of nicknames " : savages first named themselves after 
 natural objects ; and then, confusing these objects with 
 their ancestors of the same names, reverenced them as they 
 already reverenced their ancestors. 2 The objection to this 
 view is that it attributes to verbal misunderstandings far 
 more influence than, in spite of the so-called comparative 
 mythology, they ever seem to have exercised. Sir John 
 Lnbboek also thinks that totemism arose from the habit 
 of naming persons and families after animals ; but in 
 dropping the intermediate links of ancestor-worship and 
 verbal misunderstanding, he has stripped the theory of all 
 that lent it even an air of plausibility. 3 
 
 Lastly, it may be observed that, considering the far- 
 reaching effects produced on the fauna and flora of a dis- 
 trict by the preservation or extinction of a single species 
 of animals or plants, it appears probable that the tend- 
 ency of totemism to preserve certain species of plants and 
 animals must have largely influenced the organic life of the 
 countries where it has prevailed. But this question, with 
 the kindred question of the bearing of totemism on the 
 
 1 A. H. Sayce, The Religion of the Ancient Babylonians (Hibbert 
 Lectures, 1887), p. 279 sq. 
 
 2 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 367. 
 
 3 Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, p. 260. 
 
96 TOTEMISM. 
 
 original domestication of animals and plants, is beyond the 
 scope of the present article. 
 
 Literature. — Apart from the original authorities which have been 
 referred to, the literature on totemism is very scanty. The 
 importance of totemism for the early history of society was first 
 recognized by Mr J. F. M'Lennan in papers published in the Fort- 
 nightly Review (October and November 1869, February 1870). The 
 subject has since been treated of by E. B. Tylor, Early History of 
 Mankind, p. 284 sq. ; Sir John Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, 
 260 sq. ; A. Lang, Custom and Myth, p. 260, &c. ; E. Clodd, Myths 
 and Dreams, p. 99 sq. ; W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage 
 in Early Arabia. See also Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed. , article 
 "Sacrifice," vol. xxi. p. 135. 
 
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