Note 195 — INTRODUCTION.
Reading edition
The story of the Deer Spring People affords, perhaps, the best evidence in favor of the former existence of totemism to be found in the legend. Assuming that the immigrants from the west had once totemic names, we may explain this story by saying that it was people of the Deer gens who stayed behind and gave their name to the spring where they remained; that in the course of time they became known as People of the Deer Spring; and that, as they still retain their old name in a changed form, the story-teller is constrained to say that the fate of the deer is not known. Perhaps the name of the Maitóʻdĭneʻ (par. 428) may be explained in somewhat the same way. (See “The Gentile System of the Navajo Indians,” p. 107.318)