Volume 4 — CHAPTER V

TOTEMISM AND TABOO

421. Totemism and taboo are both of them intimately connected with the history of early religion, but in different ways. Totemism is not essentially religious if religion be held to involve worship of superhuman or extrahuman beings; it has, however, in many cases coalesced with religious practices and ideas, and it is sometimes difficult to draw the line distinctly between it and religion proper. Taboo, on the other hand, is founded on magical conceptions, and these are nearly allied to the basis of early religion; it is more or less prominent in all early cults, and has survived in the higher religious systems, though in these it is generally spiritualized. The two lines of development, totemism and taboo, appear side by side in early cults, and influence each the other; but their functions in the social organization of religion have been different, and they are best treated separately. As the collections of material for their history are still incomplete, accounts of them must be regarded as, to a greater or less extent, provisional.

Totemism

422. The natural attraction of human beings for one another and the necessity of providing effective means of defense against enemies have led men to associate themselves together in clans and tribes. In such associations some form of organization arose as a matter of course; experience early showed that men could not live together except under the guidance and control of authoritative regulations. Such regulations dealt with fundamental facts of life, which in the beginnings of society are mostly physical. The points requiring regulation are: the relation of man to nonhuman things (animals, plants, and inanimate objects); the maintenance of rights of life and property; and the sexual relations between human beings, especially marriage as the basis of the family. The determination of what things may be eaten belongs more particularly under "taboo," and is considered below. Customs and rules designed to protect life and property have always coalesced with religious systems; they are mentioned in connection with the ethical element in religion.769 The other points—relations to nonhuman things and sexual relations—may be conveniently considered together here; but, as the second point belongs rather to sociology than to the history of religion, it will be sufficient, with an introductory word on marriage restrictions (under Exogamy), to give the facts in connection with the various totemic organizations.

423. Exogamy.770 All over the savage world the general rule prevails (though not without exceptions) that a man must not marry a woman of his own clan; though the family proper (husband, wife, and children) exists, the clan is the fundamental social unit. When a tribe contains several clans it is commonly divided into groups (phratries), each phratry including certain clans, and the rule then is that a man shall not marry a woman of his phratry. Usually the number of phratries is two, but in some cases (as among the Australian Arunta and adjoining tribes) these are divided so that there are four or eight exogamous groups (subphratries). When the totem is hereditary the totemic clans are exogamous; otherwise (as among the Arunta) marriage between persons of the same clan is permitted.

424. Whether the clan or the phratry preceded in time it is hardly possible to determine—clans may have united to form a larger group, or an original group may have been divided into clans. But in the latter case this original group was practically a clan, so that the question of precedence in time is not important. Where clan exogamy exists without phratries it is possible that these also formerly existed and have been dropped in the interests of freedom—that is, they limited the choice of a wife to an extent that proved inconvenient.771

425. An almost universal feature of the marriage rules of low tribes is the classificatory system of relationship. According to this system, the community being divided into groups, terms of relationship indicate not kinship in blood but tribal status in respect of marriageability; thus, the same term is used for a child's real father and for every man who might legally have become the husband of his mother, and the same term for the real mother and for every woman whom the father might have married; the children of such possible fathers and mothers are the child's brothers and sisters; all possible spouses are called a man's "wives" or a woman's "husbands"; and similarly with all relationships.772

426. The system has many varieties of form, and gives way in time to the formal recognition of blood kinship. It has been held to point to an earlier system of "group marriage," in which all the men of one group had marital relations with all the women of another group, and further to a primitive custom of sexual promiscuity.773 In the nature of the case these hypotheses do not admit of proof or disproof. All that is certain is that the classificatory system has been and is an accompaniment of one stage of social and religious development.

427. The effect of exogamous arrangements has been to prevent marriage between persons related in blood.774 In totemic organizations, when the totem is inherited, a division into two exogamous groups makes marriage of brother to sister impossible, since all the children of one mother are in the same group; and if there are four such groups and children are assigned to a group different from that of the father and that of the mother, marriage between parent and child is impossible. When the totem is not inherited (as is the case among the Australian Arunta) similar results are secured by a further subdivision.

428. The particular exogamic customs vary considerably among early tribes, the differences following, in general, differences of social organization. In some more settled savage communities (as, for example, the Kurnai of Southeast Australia), in which there are neither classes nor totemic clans, marriage is permitted only between members of certain districts.775 Well-organized social life tends to promote individual freedom in marriage as in other things. Marriage with a half-sister was allowed by the old Hebrew law,776 and Egyptian kings often married their sisters.

429. Theories of the origin of exogamy. Exogamy has been referred to a supposed scarcity of women, which forced the young men to seek wives abroad.777 On the assumption of early sexual promiscuity it has been regarded as a deliberate attempt to prevent the marriage of blood relations.778 It has been supposed to result from the absence of sexual attraction between persons who have been brought up together.779 An original human horde being assumed, it has been suggested that the patriarch, who had possession of all the women of the horde, would, from jealousy, drive the young men off to seek wives elsewhere.780 From the point of view of the totem as divine ancestor, exogamy has been supposed to arise from religious respect for the clan blood, which is held to share the divinity of the totem, and would be polluted (with danger to the clan) by outside marriages.781

430. Objections may be raised to all these theories. It is doubtful whether a scarcity of women existed in early times; and supposing that there were not women enough in a clan for the men of the clan, this would not stand in the way of men's taking as wives their clan women.782 The assumption of primitive sexual promiscuity, likewise, cannot be said to be distinctly borne out by known facts.783 Morgan's theory, however, is not dependent on this assumption—it need only suppose repugnance to the marriage of blood relations. Such repugnance granted, the main objection to the theory rests on the difficulty of supposing savages capable of originating so thoughtful and elastic a scheme as the exogamous system. This is a point on which it is not possible to speak positively. The lowest tribes have produced languages of wonderfully intricate and delicate construction, and, supposing the process of constructing marriage regulations to have gone on during a very long period, modifications introduced from time to time, to meet conditions felt to be important, might conceivably result in such exogamous systems as are now found.

431. As to absence of sexual attraction between persons brought up together,784 this seems to be a result rather than a cause of the prohibition of sexual relations between certain classes of persons. The argument from habits of the lower animals is indefinite—no general habit has been proven. In orgies in India and elsewhere no repulsion appears between persons of the same family. In the ancient world marriage between such persons was legal and not uncommon.

432. The human horde, with its jealous patriarch, appears to be a creation of the scientific imagination. It, again, was derived by its author from the procedure of certain beast-herds in which the strongest male drives away his rivals. It is supposed, however, that in the human horde the young men, having found wives, are allowed to come back bringing their wives with them, and these last the patriarch is supposed not to appropriate. The theory is supported by no facts of actual usage.

433. The supposition that the young men of a clan or tribe go off to seek food, and thus found a new clan, has more in its favor. Being compelled to seek wives in their new surroundings, they might thus initiate a habit of outside marriage that would in time become general usage and therefore sacred. Secession from tribes does occur, and may have been frequent in prehistoric times, but concerning these times we have little or no information. It may be said that movements of this sort would furnish a more probable starting-point for savage customs than the ideas and schemes mentioned above.

434. Proof is lacking also for Durkheim's theory. It is not probable that the totem was regarded as divine in the period in which exogamy arose—by the tribes whose ideas on this point are known the totem is looked on as a friend and an equal but not as a god. And, as is pointed out above, there is no such general religious respect for the clan blood as would forbid sexual intercourse between persons of the same clan. The demand for revenge for the murder of a clansman arises from the sense of clan solidarity and the necessity of self-defense—it is only in this regard that the blood of the clan is regarded as sacred.

435. Horror of marriage or of sexual intercourse in general, within the prohibited degrees or areas, is universal in low communities; violation of the tribal law on this point is severely punished, sometimes with death. Whence this feeling sprang is not clear.785 It cannot have arisen from respect for the purity of women or from a belief in the sanctity of the family—intercourse with girls before their marriage is freely allowed, and lending or exchange of wives is common. Magical dangers are supposed to follow on infringement of marriage rules, but, as such results come from violation of any tribal custom, this throws no light on the origin of the feeling of horror in question. Absence of sexual attraction between persons brought up together,786 though the absence of such feeling is said to have been observed in some of the lower animals, is not assured for savages; its existence in civilized communities is due to the acceptance of the established usage, which makes certain unions impossible, so that they are not considered, and the germ of such a public opinion may perhaps be assumed for early tribes. Probably the horror of incest is a derivation from economic and other situations and laws that arose naturally in early society—it is a habit hardened into an instinct.

436. Though exogamy differs from totemism in origin and function, the two are often found associated—their conjunction may be said to be the general rule. There are, however, exceptions.787 Totemic clans are not exogamous in Central Australia, the Melanesian Banks Islands, among the Nandi of East Africa, and the Bakuana of South Africa. On the other hand, exogamy is found without totemism in the tribes just mentioned, among the Todas of Southern India, in Sumatra, among the African Masai and Ashanti, and in Southern Nigeria, and local exogamy among tribes (for example, the Kurnai of Southeast Australia, and the Californian Maidu and Shasta) in which totemic divisions are not perceptible.

437. In all such cases, however, the absence of records makes the history of the organizations uncertain—we do not know whether or not one of the elements, totemism or exogamy, formerly existed and has yielded to disintegrating influences. Thus local exogamy may have superseded clan exogamy in many places, the former representing the more settled habit of life, and the absence of the totemic constitution may indicate a process of decay of totemism. No general rule for the decision of the question can be laid down—every case must be judged for itself.788

438. Since a custom of exogamy presupposes at least two social groups (clans), and totemism appears to be connected originally with single clans, the natural inference is that the latter has everywhere preceded the former in time. Both have undergone great changes produced by similar sets of circumstances, and in both cases the simplest form is probably the oldest, though here again definite data are lacking. However, comparison of the known exogamous systems points to a two-group arrangement as that from which the existing forms have come.

439. Exogamy served a good purpose in early stages of society, both by preventing marriages between blood relations and by inducing a sense of the sacredness of the marriage bond. Its long persistence shows that it was regarded by most tribes as necessary for the maintenance of the tribal life. Its restriction of individual freedom in the choice of wives was an evil, and was in time modified and finally thrown off; but it seems to have been the only means, discoverable by early society, by which clans and tribes could live peaceably side by side, and it paved the way for the establishment of the family proper.

440. This brief account of the most important adjunct of totemism may serve to clear the way for the consideration of the totemic system.

441. Among the various relations that undeveloped communities sustain to nonhuman things totemism has the peculiarity that it is an alliance between a human group (clan or tribe) and a species of animals or plants, or an inanimate natural object (as sun or moon), or, rarely, an artificial object (usually an implement of labor).789 The nonhuman thing is regarded as a friend, and is respected and cared for accordingly. When it is a species (animal or plant) every individual of the species is held to bear this friendly relation to every individual of the allied human group. Generally there is believed to be not only similarity or identity of nature between the two (such identity of nature between man and nonhuman things is everywhere an article of the creed of savages) but a special intimacy, commonly a kinship of blood. While the men of a group respect their ally, it, on its part, is supposed to refrain from injuring them, and even in some cases to aid them. It is credited with great power, such as in savage life all nonhuman things are supposed to possess. The members of the human group regard one another as brothers; this feeling, however, can hardly be said to be peculiar to totemic organizations—it exists, more or less, in all early associations, particularly in any one association as against others.

442. While, therefore, we may take a certain clan alliance as a fundamental fact of totemism, we find in various communities other features of organization more or less closely combined with this into a social unity. In every such case it is necessary to inquire whether the feature in question is a universal or general accompaniment of clan alliance, and whether it is peculiar to the latter or is found in other systems also.

443. (a) Exogamy. It is pointed out above790 that totemism and exogamy are mutually independent arrangements, differing in function and origin, each being found without the other. Yet in many cases, perhaps in the majority of cases, the two are found combined. Exogamy supposes a body of clans, and, given a group of totemic clans, it would naturally be attached to these, and so become an organic part of their social constitution. Where there is no totemism the question of union, of course, does not come up. Where totemism is not accompanied by exogamy it is sometimes probable that the union of the two once existed,791 or that exogamy is excluded by the peculiar form of the totemism.792 Exogamy may thus be regarded as a natural and frequent accompaniment of totemism, but it is not a universal and necessary element of the totemic constitution.

444. (b) Names. As a general rule the totemic clan bears the name of its totem. The exceptions appear to be found in somewhat advanced communities, as the Fijians and the Kwakiutl (but not the northern branch of this tribe).793 There are also many larger exogamous groups (as, for example, in Australia) the meaning of whose names is obscure—they may or may not contain the name of the totem; but such groups may have a different origin from that of the totemic clans.

445. In some cases clans and tribes have distinctive crests or badges, generally totemic figures or parts of such figures. These are carved on beams of houses and on house poles, or cut or drawn on men's persons, and are used as signs manual, serving thus to indicate to strangers a man's clan connections. Such emblems are employed in the Torres Straits islands and British New Guinea,794 in the Aru Islands (southwest of New Guinea), and in North America among the Lenâpé (Delawares), the Pueblo tribes, the Tlingit, the Haidas, and the Kwakiutl.795

446. In America the crest is not always identical in name with the totem, and sometimes coalesces with the guardian animal-spirit. The myths that give the origin of the crest usually describe some adventure (marriage or other) of a man with the crest animal, involving sometimes, but not always, the origin of the clan.796 The relation between totem and crest thus differs in different places, and its origin is not clear. The simplest form of this relation (that found in the New Guinea region) may indicate that the totem animal, being most intimately connected with the clan, is chosen on that account as its badge. Or possibly totem and crest have arisen, independently of each other, from some early affiliation with animals, and therefore do not always coincide. Such a mode of origination would help to explain the fact that in Northwestern America a clan may have several crests, and a man also may acquire more than one. The relation of crest to clan is looser than that of totem to clan—the same crest or crests are found in different clans. When the totemic constitution of the tribe or clan is weakened, the crest may become more important than the totem, as is the case among the Haidas. But the adoption of the crest name does not invalidate the general rule that the clan bears the name of its totem.

447. Names of families and of persons do not come into consideration here. They arise from various local and personal peculiarities that, as a rule, have nothing to do with totemism, and they become more prominent and important as the latter declines.

448. The origin of clan totemic names is closely connected with the origin of the totemic organization, and will be more conveniently considered in connection with this point.797

449. (c) Descent from the totem. Details so far reported as to this belief are regrettably few and often indefinite, and it is not possible to give more than a provisional sketch of it.798 In Central Australia it is held that all the members of a clan come into being as spirit children, who are the creation of mythical half-human, half-animal beings of the olden time; the clan bears the name of the mythical ancestor (its totem), and its members regard themselves as identical in blood and nature with the totem.799 Similar beliefs are reported as existing in New South Wales and West Australia, and a definite conception of descent from the totem has been found in the Santa Cruz group in Southern Melanesia, in Fiji in Eastern Melanesia, and apparently in Tonga and Tikopia.800 In North America the belief is reported as existing among the Lenâpé (Delawares) and other Eastern tribes.801 In South America it appears among the Arawaks of Guiana,802 and perhaps elsewhere. For Africa there is little information on this point, and what we have is not always definite;803 one of the clearest expressions of descent is found in the title "grandfather" given to the chameleon by the Chameleon clan of the Herrero of German Southwest Africa, but a comparison with the similar title given by the Zulus to a sort of divine ancestor, and with the Herrero mythical stories of the origins of certain clans, suggests that the conception is vague.

450. In addition to the more direct statements there are traditions or myths that connect the origin of clans with animals or plants through the intermediation of gods or human beings, by marriage, or some other relation. The Bushbuck clan of the East African Baganda worship a lion-god, who is called an ancestor and is said to have turned into a lion at his death. Fluctuating opinions (some persons holding to direct descent from a nonhuman object, others to friendly relations between it and the ancestor) are reported in Sumatra, Borneo, and the Moluccas. The Hurons regarded the rattlesnake as a kinsman of their ancestor. The origin of the clan or family is referred to marriage with an animal by the Borneo Dyaks and various tribes on the African Gold Coast, and to marriage with a plant by some of the Upper Liluet;804 and the origin of the crests in Northwestern America is ascribed to adventures with crest animals.805 In the Trobriand group of islands (lying to the northeast of British New Guinea) the totems are said to have been brought by the first men; naturally it is not explained whence and how the men got them.806

451. These instances of indirect origination (to which others of the sort might be added) show a variety of points of view, and may be variously interpreted. They may be regarded as declensions from an earlier belief in the direct descent of the clan from the totem, or as independent conceptions that never grew into this belief. Both these ideas of the form of descent are found in widely separated regions and in communities differing one from another in general culture and in the degree of importance they attach to the totemic constitution. The possibility of general agreement in myths, with difference in details, between tribes remote from one another is illustrated by the creation myths of the Australian Arunta (who have an elaborate totemism) and the Thompson River Indians of Northwestern America (who have no clan totems, secret societies, or dramatic ceremonies); both relate transformations of primitive unformed persons, but in the former the creators are half-human, half-animal, in the latter they are men who transform half-human, half-animal beings. Such widespread variations point to early differences in social conditions and in intellectual endowments with the nature of which we are not acquainted.807

452. (d) Refusal to kill or eat the totem. The usages in regard to killing or eating the totem are so diverse, and often so uncertain, that it is not possible to lay down a general rule of prohibition. An edible totem is only a peculiar sort of sacred animal or plant, and respect for such objects often leads to refusal to kill or eat them—an interdiction of this sort does not in itself show whether or not the object in question is a totem. But within totemic areas the usage varies in a remarkable manner, as, for example, in Australia. In the north there is complete prohibition, sometimes including the totems of a man's father, mother, and father's father. Among the central tribes a man kills his clan totem only for the benefit of other clans, and eats a little of it ceremonially. In the southeast the Dieri, it is said, kill and eat their totems freely, while other tribes, the Wotjoballuk and others, eat them only at a pinch.808 The northeastern tribes have many food taboos, which, however, relate not to the totemic clans but to the exogamous subclasses. A modified regard for the totem or crest (kobong) appears in West Australia, according to Sir George Grey's report809; it is not allowable to kill a family kobong while it is asleep, and it is always with reluctance that it is killed.

453. Abstention from killing and eating the totem holds, as a rule, in the Torres Straits islands, while in New Guinea the custom varies—the totem is eaten by some tribes, not eaten by others.

454. In Melanesia the food restrictions connected with animal patrons or friends of clans are less definite than in Australia. Here, also, there are local differences of usage. Prohibition of eating or using the totem (fish, grass, fowl, and so forth) was found by Rivers in the Santa Cruz group (in Southern Melanesia) but not in the northern New Hebrides.810 In the central islands the prohibition refers to the exogamous classes, and a similar usage is reported as existing in the Duke of York group (in the north). The Fijians refrain from eating their tribal sacred animals.

455. In Polynesia family gods appear instead of totems, and the incarnations of gods (in animals and plants) are not eaten; such is the rule in Samoa and Tonga, and this was formerly the practice in Hawaii. The food restrictions in Borneo and Sumatra are not definitely totemic.

456. The non-Aryan tribes of India generally refrain from eating their totems, or, in some cases, from injuring or using them; and this is true even of those tribes (for example, the Khonds and Oraons of Bengal) that have somewhat developed theistic systems. Occasionally exemptions from the rule of abstention are procured, perhaps under Aryan influence; such influence has affected many of the tribes, but has not usually destroyed the old totemic customs. Among the Todas (in the south), however, Rivers found only feeble suggestions of totemic objects and food restrictions; the buffalo-cult seems to have ousted all others.811

457. Among the native tribes of Africa there is special respect for the object with which the clan or tribe has particularly definite relations. The Bakuana do not eat the animal whose name is borne by the clan; if an animal (the lion, for example) is dangerous, it is killed with an apology. The Herrero (of German Southeast Africa) abstain from the flesh of the chameleon, and will not eat gray sheep or oxen. Among the half-civilized Baganda, of the east, certain of the clans refrain from eating the object from which a clan takes its name; the noteworthy political organization of these people seems to have obliterated old clan functions in part. In the west (Senegambia, Ashanti, Dahomi, Nigeria, Congo) there are food restrictions, but these are not generally connected with totemic social organizations.

458. There is little evidence for totemic food restrictions in North America. The custom of apologizing to an animal on killing it, frequent elsewhere, is reported as existing among the Algonkin Ottawas and Menomini; but this is not necessarily totemic. The more advanced tribes of the East and South (Algonkin, Iroquois, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasas, Cherokees, Natchez), the peoples of the Pacific Coast, and the agricultural tribes of the middle of the continent (Pueblos, Mandans, and others) appear to be free from restrictions as to eating. The Navahos are said to refrain from the flesh of fish, turkeys, swine, and bears, but the grounds of the interdiction are not clear.812 The distinctest evidence of totemistic clan food-taboos are found among the Siouan Caddos (of the southern Mississippi Valley) and the Omahas (of the Middle West). Both these groups are in part agricultural, and it does not appear how they have come to differ from their neighbors in this regard. Food restrictions are reported for the Northwest region.813

459. There is no clear report of totemic food restrictions in Central America or in South America;814 but these regions have as yet not been thoroughly examined for clan usages.

460. (e) Magical ceremonies for increasing the supply of food. Such ceremonies exist, or have existed, in many regions and among peoples of various grades of culture, civilized as well as savage, but the cases in which they are, or were, conducted by totemistic clans are comparatively few. This sort of economic function of the totem clan is most definite and important in Central and parts of Southeast Australia, where every clan is charged with the duty of increasing the supply of its totem for the benefit of its connected clans; and magical rites are performed in the fertile coast region no less than in the arid region about Lake Eyre—that is, in these cases the employment of magic seems not to be conditioned on the natural resources of the land. Similar totemic clan functions appear in the islands of Torres Straits, the Turtle and Dugong clans performing ceremonies to increase the supply of turtles and to attract dugongs. Magical control of totems for the benefit of the whole community is reported to be found in the Siouan Omaha clans (in the center of the North American continent). The tribes just mentioned are those in which the social organization is definitely totemistic.

461. Elsewhere the economic function attaches to other bodies than totemic clans, as in parts of Southeast Australia, and in West Australia (where the ceremonies are conducted by the exogamous classes). In New Guinea the totemic character of the performances appears to be doubtful. A single instance of clan action has been found among the East African Baganda—the women of the Grasshopper clan undertake to increase the supply of their totem; why this duty is assigned to the women is not clear—the custom appears to involve a relaxation of totemistic rules. The economic festivals and "dances" of the Siouan Mandans and Hidatsa are general tribal ceremonies. Among the Pueblo Indians such rites are the care of religious fraternities;815 the Zuñi Frog clan performs a ceremony to procure rain, but this duty is mainly committed to rain-priests. In Northwestern America the magical performances are not connected with totemic clans.

462. Definition of totemism. It appears, then, that not one of the points just mentioned is found invariably in the systems of organization commonly called totemic. Exogamy is an independent phenomenon; the clan does not always bear the name of the totem, and is not always held to have descended from it; usages in regard to eating it vary greatly; magical economic ceremonies are performed by other than totemic bodies. There is no known clan that includes all these elements in its organization, though in Central Australia there is an approach to complete inclusion; the features lacking are clan exogamy and absolute prohibition of eating the totem, but practically a clan does not eat its totem, and exogamy, for reasons given above, may be left out of consideration. The Central Australian system may be said to be substantially complete; with it the North American systems stand in sharp contrast, and from it many others diverge.

463. But, with all these differences, the fact remains that in totemism the human group stands in a peculiar relation to some nonhuman object.816 This general statement must, however, be defined in two particulars: the relation is an alliance for the benefit of both parties; and the nonhuman object is not regarded as a god and is not worshiped. The first of these particulars marks totemism off from that general regard that is paid by savages to animals, plants, certain heavenly bodies, and other physical things;817 the second particular distinguishes it from the cult of ghosts and gods proper. We may therefore define it as an alliance, offensive and defensive, between a human group and a nonhuman group or object that is not worshiped, the friendly relation existing between every member of the one group and every member of the other group.818

464. This relation having been formed, the various features mentioned above will naturally become attached to it in various ways and to different extents. The clan will somehow get a name, when and how we need not now ask; usually its name is that of the totem—this is in keeping with the intimate connection between the two. To trace the origin of the clan to the totem is only to do what is done abundantly among uncivilized and civilized peoples (Hebrews, Greeks, and others); the eponymous ancestor is constructed out of the current name of the clan. To refrain from killing or eating a friendly animal or plant is a simple mark of respect. The conception of special ability in a clan to insure a supply of its totem for food is in accord with savage ideas of magical endowment. When the custom of exogamy arose it would naturally attach to the clan as the social unit.

465. In view of the diverse physical surroundings of the tribes of the earth and their intellectual differences, it cannot be surprising that they have combined these elements of organization in various ways. In their efforts to secure food, good marriage relations, protection of property, and defense against enemies, they have from time to time adopted such measures as the circumstances made desirable and possible. There is evidence that in some instances clans have changed their social regulations, sometimes by a process of internal growth, sometimes by borrowing from without. It is not always possible to trace such movements, and it is impossible now to say what the earliest social constitution of men was. The probability is that the earliest state was an unformed one, without governmental or other institutions, and that totemism was one of the first attempts to introduce order into society. In accordance with what is said above, the term 'totemism' may be used to mean particularly a simple alliance between men and nonhuman things, and then more generally to mean such an alliance combined in whatever way, with one or more of the particular customs described in preceding paragraphs.819

466. Geographical survey of totemistic usages. If totemism be taken in the simpler sense, as a certain sort of intimate relation between men and nonhuman things, it will be found to be widely distributed in the noncivilized world. Its occurrence becomes rarer in proportion as adjuncts are attached to it; as is remarked above, it is hardly possible to find a clan whose constitution embraces all adjuncts. Where usages like exogamy occur, or where there is reverence for an object, without belief in a definite, nontheistic relation between a human clan and a nonhuman object, we cannot recognize totemism proper; such usages must be treated as belonging to man's general attitude toward his nonhuman associates. The question whether they represent germinal or decadent totemism, or neither, must be considered separately in every case.

467. The two great totemistic regions of the world are Australia and North America, and in each of these the variations of custom run through the gamut of possible differences. In each of them also the native population may include different stocks, though on this point there is uncertainty. Differences of climate and topographical situations there are, but these do not always account for the diversities of culture and custom.820

468. Australia. In the heart of Central Australia (the home of the Arunta and other tribes) there are clans that bear the names of their totems, and trace their descent from half-human totem ancestors, with whom they consider themselves to be identical; totems, however, are not hereditary, but are determined by the ancestor connected with the place where the mother first becomes aware of the child within her; each clan performs magical ceremonies to secure a supply of its totem for the associated clans, and, when the totem is an animal or a plant, hunts or gathers it and brings it to be distributed; at the distribution the headman of the providing clan must eat a little of the food ceremonially, and at other times clansmen eat of it sparingly;821 the rule of exogamy relates not to the totemic clans, but to the phratries or subphratries.

469. In the South Central region these features are found, with an exception in the rule concerning eating one's totem. Sometimes, as in the Urabanna tribe, such eating is forbidden. But among the Warramunga there is a relaxation of the rule in the case of old people—for them the food restriction is removed (apparently a humanitarian provision); on the other hand, for other clansfolk there is an extension of the rule—the prohibition includes two subclasses of the moiety to which the clan belongs, and conditionally includes the whole moiety (this is perhaps a cautionary measure, to guard against the possibility of unlawful eating on the part of clansmen).

470. The special feature in North Australia (on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria) is the absolute prohibition of eating the totem. In regard to the performance of magical ceremonies for increase of the totem also there is the peculiarity that a clan is not bound to conduct such performances—it is optional with it to do so or not; it has magical power, but is not required by custom to exercise it. It is suggested by Spencer and Gillen that this variation from the usage of the Central region is to be attributed to the more regular rainfall on the coast, which insures a more regular supply of food and thus does away with the necessity for magic.822 Possibly, also, this climatic feature may account for the stricter rule of prohibition mentioned above; as the rule is sometimes relaxed when it is hard to get food, so, on the other hand, it may be strictly enforced when food is plentiful.

471. Still a different situation appears in the southeastern part of the continent (New South Wales and Victoria)—several prominent features of the Central system are absent. The Dieri clans bear the names of their totems, from which also they think themselves descended, but they eat them freely. Some adjacent tribes eat them only at a pinch, others refrain from them. The clans of the Narrinyeri are mostly localized, and the clan-names are not now those of the totems;823 the totems are eaten. The Kurnai show the greatest divergence from the ordinary type—they have neither totemic clans nor exogamous classes; their rule of exogamy relates to districts. Throughout the southeast the conduct of magical economic ceremonies by clans, every clan being responsible for its own totem, seems not to exist.

472. In certain tribes (the Wotjoballuk, the Yuin, the Kurnai, and others) there are sex-patrons, animals intimately related to all the males or all the females of the tribe; the belief is said to be that the life of any individual of the animal group is the life of a man or a woman, and neither sex group will kill its patron animal. So far as regards the conception of identity with the animal and reverence for it, the institution agrees with the usual totemic type; but since it is not connected with clans, some such designation for the animal as "patron" or "guardian" is to be preferred to "totem."824 Such animals, protectors of sexes, are of rare occurrence, having been certainly found so far only in Southeast Australia, and they occur in a body of tribes that show a disposition to discard the clan constitution. In this region individual men also sometimes have animal guardians, so that a general tendency toward individualism may be recognized. It is not unnatural to connect this tendency with the fertility of the south coast, which may weaken the clan organization. The organization by sex is a singular phenomenon, of the history of which there are no records. It is doubtless a special development of the widespread separation of the sexes, combined with an increasing recognition of the property rights and the social equality of women. At an early age boys were often kept apart from girls. Special taboos, of food and other things, were imposed on women. On the other hand, they were in some cases the owners of the tribal property, and were sometimes admitted to membership in secret societies. The organization of the sex would follow under peculiarly favorable conditions.825

473. The remaining districts of Australia have been less carefully investigated than the central and southern parts, and information about their totemistic customs is not always satisfactory. So far as the accounts go there is a widespread divergence from simple clan organization in these districts. In Northeast Australia (Queensland) there are exogamous subclasses, and no clan taboos. In the southwest not clans but families are the social units; these trace their descent from animals, and there are individual animal patrons. In the northwest no clan organization is reported; there is class exogamy, and in the magical ceremonies the performers are taken from the exogamous classes.

474. Torres Straits Islands. These noteworthy variations in the totemism of the Australian continent appear to be connected in a general way with differences of climate and the degree of isolation of the clans and tribes. Similar variations appear in the Torres Straits islands and in British New Guinea. In the western islands of the Straits (the only part in which distinct totemism has been found) the social organization is to a certain extent independent of totemic relations: the clans are locally segregated, and marriage is mainly regulated by blood-kinship. On the other hand, an intimate relation between a man and his totem is recognized—the latter, as a rule, is not eaten by the related clansmen (there are exceptions), magical economic ceremonies are performed by certain clans, and there is clan exogamy. A possible survival of an early social arrangement is the existence of subsidiary totems.

475. There is also a rudimentary cult of heroes: two of these (animal in form) have shrines and effigies, annual dances are performed in their honor, and stones are shown in which their souls are supposed to dwell. The resemblance of this cult to certain forms of worship in Polynesia (in Samoa, for example) is apparent; the stones may be compared with similar abodes of superhuman animals or spirits in Central Australia and elsewhere; the myths connect the two animal heroes with the origin of totems—a common procedure. One hero, Kwoiam of Mabuiag, is said to have been a real man, and to have been almost deified; divinization of dead men is not unusual in Polynesia.

476. New Guinea. In the eastern portion of British New Guinea the peculiarities of organization are826 that the people live in hamlets; that there is generally a combination of totems in a clan; and that special regard is paid to the father's totem. There is no report of belief in descent from the totem.827 The hamlets tend to become family groups, but clan exogamy is observed. The system of "linked totems" seems to be designed to secure superhuman aid from all departments of the nonhuman world: ordinarily there will be a bird, a fish, a snake, and a plant—the bird has come to be the most important of these. A man may kill his own totem but not his father's—a rule that has arisen perhaps from a displacement of matrilineal descent (according to which a man's totem is that of his mother) by descent through the father. So far as appears, there are no magical ceremonies for increase of the supply of food. In both New Guinea and the Straits the fact that old customs are disappearing under foreign influence increases the difficulty of determining whether certain usages are primitive or decadent.

477. Melanesia. The social organization in the vast mass of islands called Melanesia828 has not been fully investigated, but the existence of some general features has been established. Society is divided not into clans or tribes, but into exogamous classes, and the classificatory system of relationships is general. The rules governing marriage are less elaborate than in Australia, the method of initiation is simpler, and the political organization is more definite. In regard to other usages commonly associated with totemism the reported details are not numerous. There appears to be a movement away from Australian totemism, growing more pronounced as we go eastward, and culminating in Fiji, in which totemic features are very rare.

478. In the Bismarck Archipelago every class has connected with it certain animals regarded as relatives, but in New Britain, apparently, not as ancestors.829 In New Ireland dances imitating the movements of the sacred animals are performed. Such animals are treated with great respect, and the relation to them constitutes a bond of union between members of a class.

479. Some peculiarities appear in the Solomon Islands. While there is the usual regard for the sacred objects (called buto), so that these are not to be eaten (in some cases not to be touched or seen), the names of the classes are not always those of the sacred things, and there is difference of opinion among the natives as to whether the latter are ancestors or merely associated with an ancestor: a man (particularly a chief) may announce that after death he will be incarnate in a given thing, as, for example, a banana—this then becomes sacred. But in some cases830 the god of the class is regarded as the ancestor; instead of a number of sacred animals there is a theistic system with regular worship—a state of things quite distinct from totemism.831

480. In the New Hebrides group there is mention of a slight magical ceremony performed by a member of a class to attract a class animal, but there is no rule against eating the object whose name the class bears. The usage in the Santa Cruz group in regard to eating, and the belief as to descent from the sacred object, differ in different islands; they are sometimes lax and vague, sometimes strict and definite.

481. Belief in a vital connection between a man and some object chosen by himself is found in the Banks Islands; there is an obvious similarity between such an object and the North American manitu. Further, the belief is reported by Rivers that in these islands the character of a child is determined by an edible object from which the mother, before the birth of the child, received some sort of influence; the child will resemble the object or be identified with it, and will not, throughout life, eat of it.832

482. In the easternmost group, the Fijian, the relation between the tribes and their associated sacred animals and plants was, and is, various. The rule was that these should not be injured, and, if edible, should not be eaten. But alongside of such sacred objects real gods are found; these dwell or are incarnate in certain birds, fish, and plants, and sometimes in men. In one district, in the interior of the large island Viti Levu, Rivers learned that every village had its deity, which in many cases might turn into an animal, and the animal would then become taboo;833 the familiar custom of not eating a sacred thing was thus extended to any new object of this sort. The functions of the tribal sacred animals approached in some points those of gods: they were consulted by magicians on important occasions (war, sickness, marriage). It was supposed (somewhat as in the Banks Islands) that the tribal sacred animal appeared to a mother just before the birth of her child.

483. Thus in Melanesia, along with a large mass of sacred objects connected more or less intimately with social units (but not with clans proper), there are usages and ideas that are commonly found associated with clan totemism (belief in descent from a sacred thing and refusal to eat it when it is edible), but also other ideas and usages (omens from animals; superhuman determination, before a child's birth, of its character; creation of a new sacred thing by an individual man) that look away from clan organization to an individualistic form of society.834

484. Micronesia and Polynesia. The character of the social organization in Micronesia (the Caroline and Pelew groups, with which may be included the little island of Tikopia, southeast of the Santa Cruz group) is not very well known, but the published reports indicate a considerable divergence from clan totemism. The westernmost island of the Carolines, Uap (or Yap), according to a recent observer,835 retains many old beliefs, is without an exogamous system, and has a large apparatus of spirits and gods. Elsewhere in the Carolines and in Tikopia there are non-exogamous social groups, sacred animals greatly revered, and in some places belief in descent from an animal-god. Sacred animals and village gods (with exogamous families) are found in the Pelew group.836 The diversity in Micronesian customs may be due in part to mixture of tribes resulting from migrations.

485. In Polynesia the family is generally the social unit, and there is a fairly good political organization, with more or less developed pantheons. Gods are held to be incarnate in animals and trees, but there are also great gods divorced to some extent from phenomena. The theistic development is noteworthy in Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, and Tonga, and there are elaborate forms of worship with priests and temples. The existing organization is not totemic, but here, as elsewhere in similar cases, the question has been raised whether or not the gods have arisen from sacred (or, more definitely, totemic) animals and plants,837 and whether, in general, the existing organization was preceded by one approaching totemism.838

486. Indonesia. The Battas of the interior of Sumatra have clan exogamy (but the clans live mixed together), and every clan has sacred animals which it is unlawful to eat. One clan on the west coast asserts its descent from a tiger. In the Moluccas villages claim descent from animals or plants, and these are taboo. The indications of totemic organization in Borneo are slight: there are sacred animals that are not eaten, and there is a vague feeling of kinship with animals—phenomena that are not necessarily totemic. The belief of the Sea Dyaks in individual guardians is to be distinguished from general respect for sacred animals.

487. India. The non-Aryan peoples of India are divided into a large number of exogamous clans, each with its sacred object, which it is unlawful to injure or use.839 A departure from ordinary totemic usage appears in the fact that in many cases the sacred objects receive worship. The social constitution of these peoples seems to have undergone modifications, partly through adoption of agriculture (which has occurred generally), partly by direct Hindu religious influence; the history of the non-Aryans, however, is obscure in many points. The Aryans of India have exogamy but not totemism, and this is true in part of the Assamese. Totemism has not been observed in Burma840 and China, or in the Malay Peninsula.

488. North America. The North American native tribes, scattered over a large territory, with widely different climatic and topographical features, and themselves divided into half a dozen linguistic stocks, show great diversities of social organization. While exogamous groups (clans, phratries, and local groups) are found almost everywhere, there is little precise information about certain fundamental points of totemic systems, particularly customs of killing and eating the totem and belief in descent from it. With a general apparatus that often suggests an original totemism, the American social type differs considerably from the Australian, resembling in some respects the Melanesian and the Polynesian, but with peculiarities that difference it from these. Among the Eskimo and the Californians no definite signs of totemism have been discovered. Among the other peoples the Rocky Mountain range makes a line of demarcation—the tribes of the Pacific Coast differ in organization decidedly not only from their eastern neighbors but also from all other known savage and half-civilized peoples. There are points of similarity to these, but the general Pacific Coast type is unique.

489. Beginning with the Eastern tribes, we find that the Iroquois and their allies (Mohawks, Senecas, and others),841 mainly agricultural, had the tribe or the phratry rather than the clan as their political and religious unit. The Iroquois League, organized by the great statesman Hiawatha in the fifteenth century, was a federal union of five (later of six) tribes that showed remarkable political wisdom and skill. The great festivals were tribal. The clan is recognized in a myth that describes the metamorphosis of a turtle into a man who became the progenitor of the clan of that name, and it was socially influential by reason of the brotherhood that existed among members of clans having the same name in different tribes, and through the fact that a man's personal name was the property of the clan. The totem figure was used as a badge. Whether or not the totem was killed and eaten is not known. In the form, then, in which it is known, the Iroquois organization cannot be called totemic—whether it was originally such must be left undetermined.

490. The Cherokees, belonging to the southern division of the Iroquois stock (living formerly in Tennessee and North Carolina), killed the animals they respected, but with ceremonies. Their Green Corn dance, the object of which was to insure a good crop, was expiatory, and was accompanied by a general amnesty.842

491. Wyandot (Huron) myths843 account for their Snake and Hawk clans by stories of marriages between women and a snake or a hawk; here human beings are assumed to have existed before the genesis of the clan (a difference from the Australian scheme), but it is true that the clan is held to have descended in part from an animal.

492. In the great Algonkin stock844 the evidence for a distinct totemic organization is similarly indefinite. The Lenâpé (Delawares), who were agricultural and well advanced in manufacture, gave prominence to families rather than to clans, and the totem was a badge. The Ojibwas, hunters (dwelling by the Great Lakes and in the valley of the St. Lawrence),845 also used their sacred animal forms as badges; whether they ate such animals or claimed descent from them we are not informed. The friendly relation existing between the Otter and Beaver clans is explained by a story of a marriage between an Otter clansman and a Beaver woman. For the Potawatamies it was lawful to kill and eat the totem. The Ottawas (of Canada) and the combined Sauks and Foxes (of the Mississippi Valley) had traditions of descent from the totem. The Menomini (of the same region) would kill the totem, but always with an apology to it; their myths embody varying conceptions of the relation of eponymous animals to clans: sometimes the origin of a clan is referred to the action of a supernatural being who changed a bear, for example, into a man, or to adventures of animals; sometimes eponymous birds (eagle and hawk) are described as being spirits or deities. Such introduction of supernatural beings involves a deviation from the conception of the eponymous animal as independent creator of a clan.846

493. For the tribes bordering on the Gulf of Mexico no signs have been preserved of an organization based on the relation between clans and eponymous animals, plants, and other objects. The great Maskoki stock (including Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasas, and some other less important tribes) had a well-formed political system, and their religion was represented by the Chief Magician or Priest (Medicine Man). They performed magical ceremonies for increase of food, but these were tribal, and the Creek annual fast (puskita, busk) had high religious and ethical significance.847

494. The Caddoan group, dwelling formerly west of the Mississippi, in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, had an approach to specific totemism. In the Caddo tribe clansmen refrained from killing the eponymous animal; but all members of the tribe refrained from killing eagles and panthers. Whether this custom represents former clan restrictions is uncertain. For the related Skidi Pawnee (who formerly dwelt in the Nebraska region) there is evidence, from folk-tales, of a belief in the origin of clans from marriages between human beings and animals, and of belief that through such marriages benefits accrued to the people. But such beliefs appear not to have affected the Pawnee social organization.848

495. The Nakchi (Natchez) people (of the lower Mississippi Valley) dwelt in villages that had such names as "pond-lily people," "hickory people," "swan people," "forest people." These are possibly survivals of totemic names, but there is no account of the existence of totemic groups among them. On the other hand, they had a highly developed sun-worship, with human sacrifices.

496. Customs in the Siouan stock vary. In the Dakota tribe there is no known evidence of totemism. The Omahas (of the Missouri Valley), who are partly agriculturalists, partly hunters, refrain from eating or using eponymous objects, certain clans are credited with magical power over such objects, and there are traces, in ceremonies and myths, of the descent of clans, each from its eponym. This combination of more definite totemistic conceptions is not found in any other member of the Siouan stock. The Osages had a tradition or myth of their descent from animals, but their civil organization was nontotemic—they were divided into two groups, termed respectively the Peace Side and the War Side, and the members of the former group took no animal life, though they ate flesh that they obtained from the War Side. The origin of this custom is uncertain—the two divisions of the tribe, the hunters and the tillers of the soil, exchanged products, but how this division of labor arose (whether from a union of two tribes or otherwise) is not clear. Among the Hidatsa, it is reported, there was a belief that spirit children might enter into a woman and be born into the world. The resemblance to the Central Australian belief is striking, but it does not appear that such entrance of spirit children was supposed to be the only mode of human birth. The Mandans (living on the Missouri River, in North Dakota) now have no totemic system; but little or nothing is known of their early history.849 In the Siouan tribes the figure of the individual animal guardian (the manitu or "medicine") plays a prominent rôle.

497. There are indications that the institutions of the Pueblo tribes (who are now wholly agricultural) have undergone modifications, perhaps under foreign (Spanish) influence. Hopi myths represent clans as descended from ancestors originally animal, and transformed into human shape by deities. But the elaborate sun-worship and the complicated solstice ceremonies are tribal.850 The Zuñi economic ceremonies appear to have passed from under clan control. Thus, the magical ceremony for procuring rain, properly the function of the Frog clan, is now in the hands of rain-priests; and the magical, dramatic performances for insuring a supply of food are conducted by nontotemic religious fraternities. The great Snake "dance" may have been originally a totemic ceremony intended to secure rain and corn.851

498. For a former totemic organization among the Navahos, Apaches, and Mohaves (these last live on the Colorado River) there are only vague traditions and other faint traces; the taboos on foods now touch not a particular clan but a whole tribe.

499. The coast tribes of Northwest America (in British Columbia and the United States)852 differ in social organization from the other Indians in several respects, and particularly in the importance they attach to rank, in their employment of the crest or badge, and in the prominence they give to the individual guardian animal or spirit.

500. In the civil organization of the Carrier division of the Déné, the Salish, the Kwakiutl, and other tribes, three or four castes or groups are recognized: hereditary nobles; the middle class, whose position is based on property; and the common folk; and to these is to be added among some tribes the class of slaves. In the summer ceremonies the men are seated according to class and rank. The family pride of the nobles is great—every family has its traditions and pedigrees. In such a scheme the zoönymous clan plays an insignificant part. Classes and clans are mixed in the villages in which, for the most part, these people live, and trade is prominent in their life. The curious custom of the "potlatch"—a man invites his friends and neighbors to a gathering and makes them magnificent presents, his reputation being great in proportion to the extent of his gifts—appears to be a device for laying up property; the host in his turn receives presents from friends and neighbors.

501. The employment of a sacred object as a badge or crest, a sign of tribal or clan position, is found, as is noted above,853 in various parts of the world: in the Torres Straits islands, in the Aru archipelago (west of New Guinea), and in North America among the Iroquois, the Lenâpé (Delawares), the Pueblos, and perhaps among the Potawatamies. In these tribes, however, the rôle of the badge is relatively unimportant—it is employed for decorative purposes, but does not enter fundamentally into the organization of the clan or the tribe. In Northwest America, on the other hand, it is of prime significance both in decoration and in organization—it, to a great extent, takes the place occupied elsewhere by the totem, and it is not always identical with the eponymous object of the clan, though this may be an accidental result of shifting social relations (new combinations of clans, or a borrowing of a device from a neighbor).

502. The crest. The origin of this function of the crest and its relation to the function of the totem is not clear; it may have arisen in different ways in different places, or different conceptions may have been combined in the same place. The decorative use is an independent fact, having no necessary connection with clan organization; the demand for decoration is universal among savages, and the employment of sacred objects for this purpose is natural. Figures of such objects are used, however, in magical procedures—abundantly, for example, in Central Australia—and it is conceivable that such use by a clan may have converted the totemic object into a symbol or device. The artistic employment of figures of sacred objects has been developed on the American Pacific Coast to a remarkable extent; the great poles standing in front of houses or erected in memory of the dead have carved on them histories of the relation of the family or of the deceased person to certain animals and events. These so-called totem poles presuppose, it is true, reverence for the sacred symbol, but the custom may possibly have grown simply out of artistic and historical (or biographical) motives.

503. Perhaps, however, we must assume or include another line of development. The crest may be regarded either as the non-artistic modification or degradation of an original true totem (due to diminished reverence for animals and other causes), or as an employment of sacred objects (for purposes of organization) that has not reached the proportions of totemism proper. Which of these views will seem the more probable will depend partly on the degree of importance assigned to certain traditions and folk-stories of the Northwestern tribes, partly on one's construction of the general history of totemistic observances. In so obscure a subject a definite theory can hardly be maintained. The large number of stories in which the beginnings of clan life are attributed to marriages between clansmen and eponymous animals, or to beneficent or other adventures with such animals, may appear to indicate that there was an underlying belief in the descent of clans from animals. On the other hand, in certain low tribes (in New Britain and the Solomon Islands and elsewhere) the feeling of kinship with animals is said to exist without the belief that they are ancestors, or the animal is regarded as the representative of a human ancestor rather than as itself the ancestor. This latter view may be a bit of euhemeristic rationalism.854

504. While guardian spirits (generally in animal form) are found abundantly in America and elsewhere,855 their rôle in the tribes of the Pacific Coast appears to be specially important, for there they largely take the place occupied in Central Australia by the clan totems. They are not wholly lacking, however, in Australia. Among the nontotemic Kurnai of Southeast Australia there are animal patrons of the sexes and of shamans and other individuals. In like manner the shamans of the Pacific Coast Haidas and Tlingit have their guardians, and sometimes secret societies are similarly provided; in the winter ceremonies of the Kwakiutl the youth is supposed to be possessed by the patron of the society to which he belongs. We thus have, apparently, similar and mutually independent developments in Australia and America out of the early relations of men with animals.

505. The Eskimo live in small groups, and marriage is locally unrestricted. There is the usual reverence for animals, with folk-stories of animal creators and of transformations, but no well-defined marks of totemism, and no recognition of individual protecting animal-spirits.

506. In the Californian tribes, which are among the least developed in America, no traces of totemistic organization have been found.856 The people live, or lived, in villages. The shamans, who are important members of the communities, have their familiar spirits, acquired through dreams and by ascetic observances; but these belong to the widespread apparatus of magic, and differ in their social function from guardian spirits proper.

507. There are no definite marks of totemism in Central and Northeastern Asia, and few such marks in Africa. The Siberian Koryaks believe in a reincarnation of deceased human beings in animals, but their social organization is not determined by this belief. Certain clans of the Ainu (inhabiting the northernmost islands of the Japan archipelago) are said to regard as ancestors the animals whose names they bear, but this belief appears to be socially unimportant. Marriage is not controlled by clan relations.

508. Throughout savage Africa sacred animals, plants, and other objects play a great part in life, but generally without assuming a specifically totemistic rôle.

509. In the great Bantu family the usages vary greatly.857 One of the most interesting systems is that of the Bakuana (in the south). Here the eponymous animal approaches divinity—not only is it killed with regret, it is a thing to swear by, and has magical power; but independence of the totem appears in the fact that it may be changed; that is, it is a friend adopted by men at their convenience. It is in accord with this conception that the Bakuana (who are pastoral and agricultural) have clan gods. Beyond taboos on sacred objects there is nothing in the Bantu territory that clearly indicates a totemistic organization of society.

510. In the half-civilized and higher savage communities of the eastern and western parts of the continent totemism proper, if it has ever been predominant, has been expelled or depressed by higher forms of organization. It seems not to exist among the Masai, a vigorous people with an interesting theistic system. The neighboring Nandi, who have clan totems, lay stress rather on the family than on the clan in their marriage laws, and their taboos include more than their totems; their excessive regard for the hyena may be due simply to their fear of the animal.858

511. The half-civilized Baganda (of the British Uganda Protectorate) refrain from injuring clan totems, but the functions of the clans are now political and religious (relating, for example, to the building of temples) under the control of a quasi-royal government; there is almost complete absence of magical ceremonies for the multiplication or control of sacred objects.859 Old marriage laws are relaxed—a king may marry his sister (as in ancient Egypt). Free dealing with totems is illustrated by the adoption of a new cooking-pot as totem by one clan. The cult of the python obtains here, as in West Africa. Among the neighboring Banyoro, and among the Bahima (west of Victoria Nyanza), who are herdsmen with a kingly government, there is the usual reverence for animals, but eponymous animals are not important for the social organization.

512. In West Africa also definite totemistic organization has not been found. Everywhere there is reverence for the eponymous sacred thing, and, when it is edible, refusal to eat it; but the taboos are sometimes, as in Siena (which is agricultural), more extensive than the list of sacred things. In Southern Nigeria at funerals (and sometimes on other occasions) the totem animal or plant is offered, in the form of soup, to the dead; the animal or plant in such cases is regarded, apparently, simply or mainly as acceptable food for ghosts—the offering is a part of ancestor-worship. In Congo families have sacred animals (as in Samoa) which they abstain from eating. Here and there occurs belief in the reincarnation of deceased human beings in animals. A negro fetish, becoming intimately associated with a clan, sometimes resembles a totem. The half-civilized Ashanti, Dahomi, and Yoruba have elaborate theistic systems, with monarchical governments that leave no place for a totemistic organization.860

513. Madagascar, before it came under European control, had a well-defined religious and political hierarchy.861 Along with its very elaborate tabooism the island has beliefs concerning animals that are found in totemic systems but do not take the form of totemism proper. The animal is regarded as an ancestor or a patron, but clans do not take their names from animals, there is no general rule of exogamy, and there is no word corresponding exactly to the word 'totem.' The question arises whether the Malagasy system is a stage antecedent to totemism proper or an attenuated survival of it.862

514. Alleged survivals of totemism among civilized peoples. Though totemism, as a system of social organization, is not recognizable in any civilized community, ancient or modern, it is held by some scholars that the fragments or hints of such a system that are certified bear witness to its former existence in these communities.863

515. In fact certain ideas and customs that occur in connection with savage totemism are found abundantly among ancient Semites, Greeks and Romans, and in Celtic and Teutonic lands. They are such as the following: a tribe or clan bears an animal name, and regards itself as akin to the animal in question and as descended from it; this animal is sacred, not to be killed or eaten (except ceremonially), and, when it dies, is to be buried solemnly; sacred animals aid men by furnishing omens, or even by protecting from harm; they are sacrificed on critical occasions (sometimes once every year), and in some cases the killing of the sacrificial animal is treated as a crime; animal-gods are worshiped, and gods are thought to be incarnate in animals; men change into animals and animals into men; certain animals are sacred to certain deities; human worshipers dress in imitation of animal forms (by wearing skins of beasts and by other devices); a man's tribal mark is derived from the form of an animal; the death of the sacrificial animal comes to be regarded as the death of a god; the form of social organization in certain ancient communities is similar to that with which totemism is usually found associated.

516. Not all of these points are found in any one case, but their occurrence over so wide an area, it is argued, is most naturally explicable by the assumption of an original totemism of which these are the survivals. It is suggested also that they may be an inheritance from savage predecessors of the civilized peoples.

517. It will be sufficient to mention a few examples of the beliefs and usages that appear to point to an original totemism.864 Names of clans and tribes derived from animals or plants are not uncommon: Hebrew Raḫel (Rachel, ewe), perhaps Kaleb (dog) and Yael (Jael, mountain goat);865 Greek Kunnadai (dog), and perhaps Myrmidon (ant); Roman Porcius (hog), Fabius (bean); Irish Coneely (seal); Teutonic clan-names like Wolfing and the like. Belief in a general kinship of men and animals existed among Semites, Greeks, and Romans. On the other hand, belief in the descent of a clan from an animal rarely appears: it is apparently not found in the Semitic area; the Ophiogeneis of Parium (in Asia Minor) are said to have regarded themselves as akin to snakes and to have traced their genos (family or clan) to a hero who was at first a snake;866 the Myrmidons, according to one tradition, were transformed ants, and some of the Irish Coneely clan are said to have been changed into seals. Transformations of men into animals are common in Greek mythology. Taboos of certain foods were observed abundantly in the ancient world: by Egyptians,867 Hebrews,868 Greeks,869 and Romans,870 and by Celts.871 Among the various omen-giving animals some may have been totems. Solemn annual sacrifices, followed by mourning for the victims, were performed in Egypt,872 and the slaying of the sacrificial animal was treated as murder in various Greek cities.873 Living animals were worshiped in Egypt, and everywhere in antiquity gods assumed animal forms, and certain animals were sacred to certain gods. Worshipers clothed themselves in the skins of sacrificed animals in Egypt, Cyprus, and Rome.874 Tribal marks and ensigns were sometimes derived from figures of animals.875 Finally, there are traces, in the early history of the ancient civilized peoples, of the form of social organization with which savage totemism is found associated.876

518. It is possible that such facts as these may point to a primitive totemistic stage of ancient civilized society. But it is to be noted that the usages in question almost all relate to the general sacredness of animals (or of plants), not to their specific character as totems. They occur in lower tribes in cases where totemism does not exist.877 Animal clan-names and tribe-names, belief in kinship with animals and plants and in descent from them, exogamy, transformations, refusal to eat certain animals except ceremonially, apologies for killing them, omens derived from them, worship of animal-gods, incarnations of gods in animals, animals sacred to gods, tribal marks derived from animals—all these are found in such diverse social combinations that it is impossible to infer merely from the occurrence of this or that custom the existence of the peculiar form of social organization to which the name 'totemism' proper is given above. The same remark holds of inferences from the general constitution of early society; a custom of matrilineal descent, for example, by no means carries totemism with it.

519. The evidence for the existence of totemism among the ancient civilized peoples, consisting, as it does, of detached statements of customs that are found elsewhere without totemism, is not decisive. Animal-worship has played a great rôle in religious history, but the special part assigned to totemism has often been exaggerated. It has been held that the latter is at the base of all beliefs in the sacredness of animals and plants, or that certain usages (such as those mentioned above) are inexplicable except on the supposition of an original totemism. These positions are not justified by known facts, and it will conduce to clearness to give totemism its distinct place in that general regard for animals and plants of which it is a peculiar part.

520. Totemistic forms of society, as far as our present knowledge goes, are found only among the lower peoples, and among these a perplexing variety of conditions exists. As our review of what may be called totemistic features shows,878 the one permanent element in the relation between men and nonhuman, nondivine objects is reverence for these last on men's part; and the conception of an alliance, defensive and offensive, between the two groups has been proposed above as an additional differentia of totemism, a sense of kinship being involved. If we further add the condition that the social organization (not necessarily exogamous) must be determined by this alliance, we have all that can safely be demanded in a definition of totemism; but as much as this seems necessary if totemism is to be marked off as a definite institution.

521. From the point of view of religious history the important thing in any social organization is its character as framework for religious ideas and customs. If the central social fact is an intimate relation between a human group and a nonhuman class of natural objects, then conceptions regarding this relation may gather about it, and these will be as various as the tribes of men. The elements of social and religious institutions spring from the universal human nature and attach themselves to any form of life that may have been suggested by circumstances. Thus the term 'totemism' may be used loosely to denote any combination of customs connected with the idea of an alliance between man and other things, and the alliance itself may exist in various degrees of intimacy. The restricted definition suggested above is in part arbitrary, but it may serve as a working hypothesis and as a norm by which to estimate and define the various systems or cults involving a relation between human groups and individuals on the one side and nonhuman things on the other side.

522. Conditions favorable and unfavorable to totemistic organization. The questions whether totemism was the earliest form of human social life and whether existing freer forms are developments out of definite totemism may be left undetermined. Data for the construction of primitive life are not accessible, and how far decay or decadence of institutions is to be recognized must be determined in every case from such considerations as are offered by the circumstances. We may, however, distinguish between social conditions in connection with which some sort of totemism flourishes and those under which it is nonexistent or feeble; we may thus note unfavorable and, by contrast, favorable general accompaniments. These may be roughly described as economic, individualistic, political, and religious.

523. Economic conditions. Of savage and slightly civilized tribes some live by hunting or fishing, some are pastoral (nomadic or settled), some practice agriculture. Without undertaking to trace minutely the history of these economic practices it may be assumed that they are fixed in general by climatic and topographical conditions. Where food is plentiful, thought and life are likely to be freer. In general, savage peoples are constantly on the alert to discover supplies of food, and they show ingenuity in devising economic methods—when one resource fails they look for another. Hunters and fishers are dependent on wild animals for food, and stand in awe of them. The domestication of animals leads men to regard them simply as material for the maintenance of life—the mystery that once attached to them vanishes; they are considered not as man's equals or superiors but as his servants. The same result follows when they are used as aids in tilling the soil or in transportation. Agricultural peoples also have generally some knowledge of the arts of life and a somewhat settled civil and political organization, and these tend to separate them from the lower animals and to diminish or destroy their sense of kinship with them.

524. We find, in fact, that in many cases totemic regulations are less strict where the food supply is plentiful and where agriculture is practiced. The correspondence is not exact—other considerations come in, such as isolation and the unknown quantity of natural tribal endowments; but the relation between the economic and totemic conditions is so widespread that it cannot be considered as accidental.

525. Thus, for example, the contrast between the social system of sterile Central Australia and that of certain tribes on the comparatively fertile southeast coast is marked; the Kurnai have practically no clan totemism. In the islands of Torres Straits and in New Guinea agriculture marks a dividing line between stricter and looser organizations based on regard for the totem. The agricultural Melanesian and Polynesian tribes, with great regard for animal patrons, lay stress on the family or on voluntary associations rather than on the clan. In Africa the partially civilized peoples, such as the Baganda and adjacent tribes in the east, and Yoruba, Dahomi, and Ashanti in the west, have fairly well-developed religious organizations, in which totems play a subordinate part. The customs of certain tribes in the south are especially worthy of note: the pastoral Herrero have a double system of clans, maternal and paternal, and their food restrictions are curiously minute, relating to parts of animals or to their color; the Bakuana, who are pastoral and agricultural, kill the clan eponymous animals, though unwillingly, and appear not to regard them as ancestors. The non-Aryan tribes of India have been so long in contact with Aryan civilization that in many cases, as it seems, their original customs have been obscured, but at present among such agricultural tribes as the Hos, the Santhals, and the Khonds of Bengal, and some others, totemic organizations are not prominent, and the Todas, with their buffalo-cult, show no signs of totemism.

526. In North America the variety of climatic and other economic conditions might lead us to expect clear testimony as to the relation between these conditions and totemic development; but the value of such testimony is impaired by the absence of information concerning early forms of organization. In the period for which there are details it appears that in the Eastern groups (Iroquois, Algonkin, Creek, Natchez, Siouan, Pueblo) the effective rôle of totemism is in inverse proportion to the development of agriculture and to stable civil organization: there are clans bearing the names of animals and other objects, with mythical stories of descent from such objects, and rules of exogamy, but the civil, political, and religious life is largely independent of these conditions; there are great confederations of tribes with well-devised systems of government that look to the well-being of the whole community, the clan-division being of small importance. The mode of life appears to be determined or greatly influenced by climate, though different climatic situations sometimes lead to similar results: agriculture naturally arises from fertility of soil, but the Pueblo tribes have been driven (perhaps under civilized influences), by the aridness of their land, to till the soil. Throughout the East the known facts suggest that a nontotemic organization has followed an earlier form in which quasi-totemic elements are recognizable.

527. The interesting social organization of the Northern Pacific Coast, on the other hand, appears to be independent of agriculture. The people live by hunting and fishing; families and villages are the important social units; instead of totems there are crests or badges; society in some tribes is marked by a division into classes differing in social rank. The history of all these tribes, however, is obscure: there have been modifications of organization through the influence of some tribes on others; the details of the various social schemes are not all accurately known. The settled village life and the half-commercial, half-aristocratic constitution of society must be referred to racial characteristics and other conditions with which we are not acquainted. As in the East, so here there is the suggestion of a movement away from a form of organization that resembles true totemism. The Northwest has a remarkable system of ceremonies, but in definiteness and elevation of religious conceptions it is greatly inferior to the East.

528. The fact that some of the least-advanced American tribes, particularly the Eskimo and the California tribes, show no signs of totemistic organization879 makes against the view that totemism was the initial form of human society, but its historical background is not known. In any case it does not invalidate what is said above of the rôle of agriculture in the modification of savage institutions. The lines of savage growth have been various—a general law of development cannot be laid down; the history of every community must be studied for itself, and its testimony must be given its appropriate value. In this way it will be possible to give a sketch of totemistic forms and suggestions, if not a history of totemism.

529. Individualistic institutions. The development of individualism, a universal accompaniment of general social progress, is unfavorable to totemism, since in this latter the individual is subordinated to the clan. To assert one's self as an individual is practically to ignore the totem, whose function pertains to the clan as a whole, without separate recognition of its members. Revolt against the supremacy of the clan (if that expression is allowable) has shown itself from an early social stage and in all parts of the world. The principal forms in which it appears are the institution of voluntary societies, and the adoption of personal guardians by individuals.

530. Secret societies. It is a common custom in the lower tribes to keep the sexes separate and to distinguish between the initiated and the uninitiated. There are often men's houses in which the young unmarried males are required to live.880 Women and boys are forbidden to be present at ceremonies of initiation when, as in some instances, the secrets of the tribe are involved. Thus there arise frequently secret associations of males, who conduct tribal affairs. But these associations are not voluntary—all initiated men belong to them perforce—and they are not divorced from totemic relations. The real voluntary society is of a quite different character. In general, in its most developed form, it ignores differences of age, sex, and clan. There are, however, diversities in the constitution of the various organizations that may be called voluntary;881 conditions of membership and functions vary.

531. Such organizations are of two sorts, one mainly political or governmental, the other mainly religious. The best examples of the first sort are found in Melanesia, Polynesia, and West Africa. The clan government by the old men, of which a simple form exists in Central Australia, has passed into, or is represented by, a society of men that undertakes to maintain order, exact contributions, and provide amusements for the people. The Dukduk of the Bismarck Archipelago,882 the Egbo of Old Calabar, and the Ogboni of Yoruba,883 to take prominent examples, are police associations that have managed to get complete control of their respective communities and have naturally become instruments of oppression and fraud. They have elaborate ceremonies of initiation, are terrible to women and uninitiated males, and religion usually enters only casually and subordinately into their activities, chiefly in the form of magical ceremonies. A partial exception, in regard to this last point, occurs in the case of the Areoi society of Tahiti, which, as it is the best-organized society in Polynesia, is also the most tyrannical, and the broadest in its scope; its members enjoy not only a large share of the good things of this life, but also the most desirable positions in the future life.884

532. On the other hand, the North American voluntary societies are mainly concerned with the presentation of religious ideas by the dramatization of myths, and by demanding for membership some sort of religious experience. How far such societies existed in the Eastern tribes it is not possible to say. Among these tribes, as among the Skidi Pawnee, the Navahos, and other groups of the Middle West, the control of religion has largely passed into the hands of priests—an advance in religious organization. Where ceremonies are conducted by societies, membership in these is often conditioned on the adoption of a personal divine patron by every member.

533. This adoption of a guardian spirit by the individual is the most definite early divergence from the totemistic clan organization. An intermediate stage is represented by the sex-patrons of Southeast Australia,885 who embody a declaration of independence by the women. In this region, moreover, among the Kurnai, not only shamans but all other men have each his special "brother" and protector.886 Naturally, where the family, in distinction from the clan, is the social unit, family protectors arise. The Koryaks of Northeastern Asia have a guardian spirit for every family and also for every person.887 A curious feature of Dahomi religion is the importance that is attached to the family ghost as protector, the ghost, that is, of a former member of the family, ordinarily its head; he has a shrine, and becomes practically an inferior deity. Still more remarkable is the worship that the West African native, both on the Gold Coast and on the Slave Coast (communities with well-developed systems of royal government), offers to his own indwelling spirit;888 the man's birthday is sacred to the spirit and is commenced with a sacrifice.889 In Samoa a guardian spirit (conceived of as incarnate in some animal) is selected for a child at its birth.890 Some such custom is said to exist among the Eskimo of the Yukon district in Alaska; a guardian animal is selected by a boy when he arrives at the age of puberty, or it is selected for him in his early childhood by his parents.891

534. While these examples indicate a tendency toward the adoption of individual patrons, and may suggest that the custom is, or was, more widespread than now appears, it is among the North American Redmen that this sort of individualism is best developed and most effective socially and religiously.892 There are traces of it in the Eastern tribes; but it is in its Western form that it is best known—it is explicit among the Western Algonkins and the Siouan tribes, and on the Northwest Pacific Coast. Most men, though not all, seek and obtain a guardian spirit (usually represented by an animal) which shall protect from injury and bestow prowess in war, success in love, and all other goods of life. The spirit is, as a rule, independent of the clan totem—is found, indeed, in nontotemic tribes; it is often identical with the eponymous animal of some religious society. It is sometimes inherited, but rarely—the essence of the institution is that the guardian shall be sought and found. The preparation for the quest is by fasting; the revelation of the guardian comes in a dream or a vision, or by some strong impression made otherwise on the mind.

535. Among the Siouan Indians there are religious societies, each of which bears the name of some animal and has a ritual composed of chants and songs which, it is often claimed, have been received in a supernatural manner.893 The youth who aspires to become a member of one of these societies goes off alone to the forest, and there, fasting and meditating, waits for the vision of the sign. This comes usually in the form of an animal, and the youth enters the society whose distinguishing mark this animal is. First, however, he must travel until he meets the animal he saw, when he must slay it and preserve the whole or a part of it. This trophy is the sign of his vision and is the most sacred thing he can possess, marking as it does his personal relation to the supernatural being who has appeared to him.

536. A similar ceremony is found among the Kwakiutl in Northwestern America.894 The novice is supposed to stay some time with the supernatural being who is the protector of his society. From this interview he returns in a state of ecstasy, and is brought to a normal state by the songs and dances and magical performances of the shaman; but before he is permitted to take part in the ordinary pursuits of life he must undergo a ceremonial purification. In these tribes, as is remarked above, the totemic groups have been replaced by clans, and in the winter ceremonial these clans (according to one report) are again replaced by the secret societies, whose function is political only in the sense that its members form a part of the aristocracy. Recently societies of women have been established—a fact that illustrates the divergence of the new system from the old.

537. The details of initiation or of acquisition of the guardian spirit vary (for example, it is not always required that the youth kill his patron animal), but in all cases there is recognition of the emotional independence of the individual, and there is involved a certain largeness of religious experience in the modern sense of the term. The demand for the supernatural friend represents a germinal desire for intimate personal relations with the divine world; and, though the particular form that embodied the conception has given way before more refined ideas, the conception itself has survived in higher religions in the choice of patron saints.895

538. Political conditions. Political organization, in unifying a community under the control of a central authority, tends to efface local self-governing groups. This process is visible in the increased power of Melanesian chiefs, in the royal governments of Polynesia and Western and Eastern Africa, and in the inchoate constitutional federations of Eastern North America. In all these cases the simple clan system is reduced to small proportions, and totemism loses its social significance. The way in which the functions of totemic groups are thus modified appears plainly in such governmental systems as that of the East African Baganda (in which heads of clans have become officers of the king's household)896 and the Iroquois Confederation (in which the tribes act through their representatives in a national Council or Parliament).

539. Religious conditions. The personal guardian spirit and the totem, when it assumes this character, sometimes receive worship—they are treated as gods. But their rôle as divinities is of an inferior nature, and it does not last long. Deities proper came into existence as embodiments of the sense of an extrahuman government of the world by anthropomorphic beings; they are direct products of the constructive imagination.897 When the true gods appear the totemic and individual half-gods disappear. We find that totemism is feeble in proportion as theistic systems have taken shape, and that where personal guardians are prominent there are no well-defined gods. In Central Australia there is only a vague, inactive form that may be called divine; a more definite conception is found in Southeastern Australia, where the strictness of totemism is relaxed. Melanesia and Polynesia show an increased definiteness of theistic figures. Northwestern North America is, in comparison with the East, undeveloped in this regard. Similar relations between totemism and theism appear in India and South America. In a certain number of cases the facts suggest that the former system has been superseded by the latter.

540. Cults of the totem and of individual guardian spirits are to be distinguished from certain other forms of worship with which they have points of connection. The West African fetish is the abode of a tutelary spirit, and finally is absorbed by local gods; it arises, however, from belief in the sacredness and power of inanimate things, and is without the sense of identity with the spirit that characterizes the North American relation. The family sacred symbols that are worshiped in some places898 are really family gods (whether or not they were originally totems), developed, probably, under Brahmanic influence. The worship of a tutelary spirit has sometimes coalesced with that of an ancestor, but this is doubtless due to the collocation of two distinct cults; at a certain stage an ancestor is naturally regarded as friend and protector. The general potency termed "mana" is not to be connected particularly with any one cult; it represents a conception that probably underlies all ancient forms of worship.