[254] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 115. According to Howitt (_op. cit._, pp. 121 and 454), among the Wotjobaluk, the clan of the pelican is found in the two phratries equally. This fact seems doubtful to us. It is very possible that the two clans may have two varieties of pelicans as totems. Information given by Mathews on the same tribe seems to point to this (_Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria_, in _Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales_, 1904, pp. 287 f.).
[255] In connection with this question, see our memoir on _Le Totémisme_, in the _Année Sociologique_, Vol. V, pp. 82 ff.
[256] On the question of Australian matrimonial classes in general, see our memoir on _La Prohibition de l'inceste_, in the _Année Soc._, I, pp. 9 ff., and especially for the tribes with eight classes, _L'Organisation matrimoniale des societés Australiennes_, in _Année Soc._, VIII, pp. 118-147.
[257] This principle is not maintained everywhere with an equal strictness. In the central tribes of eight classes notably, beside the class with which marriage is regularly permitted, there is another with which a sort of secondary concubinage is allowed (Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, p. 106). It is the same with certain tribes of four classes. Each class has a choice between the two classes of the other phratry. This is the case with the Kabi (see Mathews, _in_ Curr, III, 162).
[258] See Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines_, pp. 56 ff.; Palmer, _Notes on some Australian Tribes_, _J.A.I._, XIII (1884), pp. 302 ff.
[259] Nevertheless, some tribes are cited where the matrimonial classes bear the names of animals or plants: this is the case with the Kabi (Mathew, _Two Representative Tribes_, p. 150), the tribes observed by Mrs. Bates (_The Marriage Laws and Customs of the West Australian Aborigines_, in _Victorian Geographical Journal_, XXIII-XXIV, p. 47), and perhaps in two tribes observed by Palmer. But these facts are very rare and their significance badly established. Also, it is not surprising that the classes, as well as the sexual groups, should sometimes adopt the names of animals. This exceptional extension of the totemic denominations in no way modifies our conception of totemism.
[260] Perhaps the same explanation is applicable to certain other tribes of the South-East and the East where, if we are to believe the informers of Howitt, totems specially attached to each matrimonial class are to be found. This is the case among the Wiradjuri, the Wakelbura and the Bunta-Murra on the Bulloo River (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 210, 221, 226). However, the evidence collected is suspect, according to his own admission. In fact, it appears from the lists which he has drawn up, that many totems are found equally in the two classes of the same phratry.
The explanation which we propose, after Frazer (_Totemism and Exogamy_, pp. 531 ff.), raises one difficulty. In principle, each clan and consequently each totem, is represented equally in the two classes of a single phratry, since one of the classes is that of the children and the other that of the parents from whom the former get their totems. So when the clans disappeared, the totemic interdictions which survived should have remained in both matrimonial classes, while in the actual cases cited, each class has its own. Whence comes this differentiation? The example of the Kaiabara (a tribe of southern Queensland) allows us to see how it may have come about. In this tribe, the children have the totem of their mother, but it is particularized by some distinctive mark. If the mother has the black eagle-hawk as totem, the child has the white eagle-hawk (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 229). This appears to be the beginning of a tendency for the totems to differentiate themselves according to the matrimonial classes.
[261] A tribe of only a few hundred members frequently has fifty or sixty clans, or even many more. On this point, see Durkheim and Mauss, _De quelques formes primitives de classification_, in the _Année Sociologique_, Vol. VI, p. 28, n. 1.
[262] Except among the Pueblo Indians of the South-West, where they are more numerous. See Hodge, _Pueblo Indian Clans_, in _American Anthropologist_, 1st series, Vol. IX, pp. 345 ff. It may always be asked whether the groups which have these totems are clans or sub-clans.
[263] See the tables arranged by Morgan, _Ancient Society_, pp. 153-185.
[264] Krause, _Die Tlinkit-Indianer_, p. 112; Swanton, _Social Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians_, in _XXVIth Rep._, p. 308.
[265] Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida_, p. 62.
[266] "The distinction between the two clans is absolute in every respect," says Swanton, p. 68; he gives the name clan to what we call phratries. The two phratries, he says elsewhere, are like two foreign nations in their relations to each other.
[267] Among the Haida at least, the totem of the real clans is altered more than that of the phratries. In fact, usage permits a clan to sell or give away the right of bearing its totem, as a result of which each clan has a number of totems, some of which it has in common with other clans (see Swanton, pp. 107 and 268). Since Swanton calls the phratries clans, he is obliged to give the name of _family_ to the real clans, and of _household_ to the regular families. But the real sense of his terminology is not to be doubted.
[270] _Indian Tribes_, I, p. 420; cf. I, p. 52. This etymology is very doubtful. Cf. _Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico_ (_Smithsonian Inst. Bur. of Ethnol._, Pt. II, _s.v._, Totem, p. 787).
[273] Charlevoix, _Histoire et description de la Nouvelle France_, V, p. 329.
[275] Erminnie A. Smith, _Myths of the Iroquois_, in _Sec. Rep. of the Bur. of Ethnol._, p. 78.
[281] See a photograph of a Haida village in Swanton, _op. cit._, Pl. IX. Cf. Tylor, _Totem Post of the Haida Village of Masset_, _J.A.I._, New Series I, p. 133.
[282] Hill Tout, _Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh of British Columbia_, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 155.
[283] Krause, _op. cit._, p. 230; Swanton, _Haida_, pp. 129, 135 ff.; Schoolcraft, _op. cit._, I, pp. 52-53, 337, 356. In the latter case the totem is represented upside down, in sign of mourning. Similar usages are found among the Creek (C. Swan, _in_ Schoolcraft, V, p. 265) and the Delaware (Heckewelder, _An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania_, pp. 246-247).
[287] Brough Smyth, I, p. 284. Strehlow cites a fact of the same sort among the Arunta (III, p. 68).
[288] _An Account of the English Colony in N.S. Wales_, II, p. 381.
[290] Swanton, _Social Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians, in XXVIth Rep._, pp. 435 ff.; Boas, _The Social Organization and Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians_, p. 358.
[292] Bourke, _The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona_, p. 229; J. W. Fewkes, _The Group of Tusayan Ceremonials called Katcinas_, in _XVth Rep._, 1897, pp. 151-263.
[298] The meaning of these relations will be seen below (Bk. II, ch. iv).
[301] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 66 n. It is true that other informers contest this fact.
[303] Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida_, pp. 41 ff., Pl. XX and XXI; Boas, _The Social Organization of the Kwakiutl_, p. 318; Swanton, _Tlingit_, Pl. XVI ff.--In one place, outside the two ethnographic regions which we are specially studying, these tattooings are put on the animals which belong to the clan. The Bechuana of South Africa are divided into a certain number of clans; there are the people of the crocodile, the buffalo, the monkey, etc. Now the crocodile people, for example, make an incision in the ears of their cattle whose form is like the jaws of this animal (Casalis, _Les Basoutos_, p. 221). According to Robertson Smith, the same custom existed among the ancient Arabs (_Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, pp. 212-214).
[304] However, according to Spencer and Gillen, there are some which have no religious sense (see _Nat. Tr._, pp. 41 f.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 45, 54-56).
[305] Among the Arunta, this rule has exceptions which will be explained below.
[306] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 162; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 179, 259, 292, 295 f.; Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 221. The thing thus represented is not always the totem itself, but one of those things which, being associated to this totem, are regarded as being in the same family of things.
[307] This is the case, for example, among the Warramunga, the Walpari, the Wulmala, the Tjingilli, the Umbaia and the Unmatjera (_Nor. Tr._, 339, 348). Among the Warramunga, at the moment when the design is executed, the performers address the initiated with the following words: "That mark belongs to your place; do not look out along another place." "This means," say Spencer and Gillen, "that the young man must not interfere with ceremonies belonging to other totems than his own: it also indicates the very close association which is supposed to exist between a man and his totem and any spot especially connected with the totem" (_Nor. Tr._, p. 584 and n.). Among the Warramunga, the totem is transmitted from father to child, so each locality has its own.
[309] It will be remembered (see above, p. 107) that in this tribe, the child may have a different totem than his father, his mother, or his relatives in general. Now the relatives on both sides are the performers designated for the ceremonies of initiation. Consequently, since in principle a man can have the quality of performer or officiant only for the ceremonies of his own totem, it follows that in certain cases the rites by which the young man is initiated must be in connection with a totem that is not his own. That is why the paintings made on the body of the novice do not necessarily represent his own totem: cases of this sort will be found in Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 229. That there is an anomaly here is well shown by the fact that the circumcision falls to the totem which predominates in the local group of the initiate, that is to say, to the one which would be the totem of the initiate himself, if the totemic organization were not disturbed, if among the Arunta it were what it is among the Warramunga (see Spencer and Gillen, _ibid._, p. 219).
The same disturbance has had another consequence. In a general way, its effect is to extend a little the bonds attaching each totem to a special group, since each totem may have members in all the local groups possible, and even in the two phratries. The idea that these ceremonies of a totem might be celebrated by an individual of another totem--an idea which is contrary to the very principles of totemism, as we shall see better after a while--has thus been accepted without too much resistance. It has been admitted that a man to whom a spirit revealed the formula for a ceremony had the right of presiding over it, even when he was not of the totem in question himself (_Nat. Tr._, p. 519). But that this is an exception to the rule and the product of a sort of toleration is proved by the fact that the beneficiary of the formula does not have the free disposition of it; if he transmits it--and these transmissions are frequent--it can be only to a member of the totem which the rite concerns (_Nat. Tr._, _ibid._).
[310] _Nat. Tr._, p. 140. In this case, the novice keeps the decoration with which he has thus been adorned until it disappears of itself by the effect of time.
[311] Boas, _General Report on the Indians of British Columbia in British Association for the Advancement of Science, Fifth Rep. of the Committee on the N.W. Tribes of the Dominion of Canada_, p. 41.
[312] There are also some among the Warramunga, but in smaller numbers than among the Arunta; they do not figure in the totemic ceremonies, though they do have a place in the myths (_Nor. Tr._, p. 163).
[313] Other names are used by other tribes. We give a generic sense to the Arunta term because it is in this tribe that the churinga have the most important place and have been studied the best.
[315] There are a few which have no apparent design (see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 144).
[317] Strehlow, who writes _tjurunga_, gives a slightly different translation to the word. "This word," he says, "means that which is secret and personal _(der eigene geheime_). _Tju_ is an old word which means hidden or secret, and _runga_ means that which is my own." But Kempe, who has more authority than Strehlow in this matter, translates _tju_ by great, powerful, sacred (_Kempe, Vocabulary of the Tribes inhabiting Macdonell Ranges_, s.v. _Tju_, in _Transactions of the R. Society of Victoria_, Vol. XIII). At bottom, the translation of Strehlow is not so different from the other as might appear at first glance, for what is secret is hidden from the knowledge of the profane, that is, it is sacred. As for the meaning given to _runga_, it appears to us very doubtful. The ceremonies of the emu belong to all the members of that clan; all may participate in them; therefore they are not personal to any one of them.
[318] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 130-132; Strehlow, II, p. 78. A woman who has seen a churinga or a man who has shown one to her are both put to death.
[319] Strehlow calls this place, defined in exactly the same terms as by Spencer and Gillen, _arknanaua_ instead of _ertnatulunga_ (Strehlow, II, p. 78).
[322] Strehlow, II, p. 78. However, Strehlow says that if a murderer takes refuge near an ertnatulunga, he is unpityingly pursued there and put to death. We find some difficulty in conciliating this fact with the privilege enjoyed by animals, and ask ourselves if the rigour with which a criminal is treated is not something recent and should not be attributed to a weakening of the taboo which originally protected the ertnatulunga.
[324] _Ibid._, pp. 545 f. Strehlow, II, p. 79. For example, the dust detached by rubbing a churinga with a stone, when dissolved in water, forms a potion which restores health to sick persons.
[326] For example, the churinga of the yam totem, if placed in the soil, make the yams grow (_Nor. Tr.,_ p. 275). It has the same power over animals (Strehlow, II, pp. 76, 78; III, pp. 3, 7).
[332] One group borrows the churinga of another with the idea that these latter will communicate some of the virtues which are in them and that their presence will quicken the vitality of the individuals and of the group (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 158 ff.).
[334] Each individual is united by a particular bond to a special churinga which assures him his life, and also to those which he has received as a heritage from his parents.
[335] _Nat. Tr._, p. 154; _Nor. Tr._, p. 193. The churinga are so thoroughly collective that they take the place of the "message-sticks" with which the messengers of other tribes are provided, when they are sent to summon foreign groups to a ceremony (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 141 f.).
[336] _Ibid._, p. 326. It should be remarked that the bull-roarers are used in the same way (Mathews, _Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria_, in _Jour. of Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, pp. 307 f.).
[339] Strehlow, I, _Vorwort. in fine_; II, pp. 76, 77 and 82. For the Arunta, it is the body of the ancestor itself; for the Loritja, it is only an image.
[340] When a child has just been born, the mother shows the father the spot where she believes that the soul of the ancestor entered her. The father, accompanied by a few relatives, goes to this spot and looks for the churinga which the ancestor is believed to have left at the moment that he reincarnated himself. If it is found there, some old man of the group undoubtedly put it there (this is the hypothesis of Spencer and Gillen). If they do not find it, a new churinga is made in a determined manner (_Nat. Tr._, p. 132. Cf. Strehlow, II, p. 80).
[341] This is the case among the Warramunga, the Urabunna, the Worgaia, the Umbaia, the Tjingilli and the Guangi (_Nor. Tr._, pp. 258, 275 f.). Then, say Spencer and Gillen, "_they were regarded as of especial value because of their association with a totem_" (_ibid._, p. 276). There are examples of the same fact among the Arunta (_Nat. Tr._, 156).
[343] The Kaitish, the Ilpirra, the Unmatjera; but it is rare among the latter.
[344] The pole is sometimes replaced by very long churinga, placed end to end.
[345] Sometimes another smaller one is hung from the top of the nurtunja. In other cases, the nurtunja is in the form of a cross or a T. More rarely, the central support is lacking (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 298-300, 360-364, 627).
[346] Sometimes there are even three of these cross-bars.
[347] _Nat. Tr,_, pp. 231-234, 306-310, 627. In addition to the nurtunja and the waninga, Spencer and Gillen distinguish a third sort of sacred post or flag, called the kanana (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 364, 370, 629), whose functions they admit they have been unable to determine. They merely note that it "is regarded as something common to the members of all the totems." According to Strehlow (II, p. 23, n. 2) the kanana of which Spencer and Gillen speak, is merely the nurtunja of the Wild Cat totem. As this animal is the object of a tribal cult, the veneration of which it is the object might easily be common to all the clans.
[350] _Ibid._, ch. x and xi.
[352] See Dorsey, _Siouan Cults, XIth Rep._, p. 413; _Omaha Sociology, Third Rep._, p. 234. It is true that there is only one sacred post for the tribe, while there is a nurtunja for each clan. But the principle is the same.
[354] _Nat. Tr._, p. 346. It is true that some say that the nurtunja represents the lance of the ancestor who was at the head of each clan in Alcheringa times. But it is only a symbolic representation of it; it is not a sort of relic, like the churinga, which is believed to come from the ancestor himself. Here the secondary character of the explanation is very noticeable.
[359] See the examples given in Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, Fig. 131. Here are designs, many of which evidently have the object of representing animals, plants, the heads of men, etc., though of course all are very conventional.
[364] It cannot be doubted that these designs and paintings also have an æsthetic character; here is the first form of art. Since they are also, and even above all, a written language, it follows that the origins of design and those of writing are one. It even becomes clear that men commenced designing, not so much to fix upon wood or stone beautiful forms which charm the senses, as to translate his thought into matter (_cf._ Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, I, p. 405; Dorsey, _Siouan Cults_, pp. 394 ff.).
[366] This is the case with the Warramunga (_Nor. Tr._, p. 168).
[367] For example, among the Warramunga, the Urabunna, the Wonghibon, the Yuin, the Wotjobaluk, the Buandik, Ngeumba, etc.
[368] Among the Kaitish, if a man of the clan eats too much of his totem, the members of the other phratry have recourse to a magic operation which is expected to kill him (_Nor. Tr._, p. 284; cf. _Nat. Tr._, p. 204; Langloh Parker, _The Euahlavi Tribe_, p. 20).
[373] It should also be borne in mind that in these myths the ancestors are never represented as nourishing themselves _regularly_ with their totem. Consumption of this sort is, on the contrary, the exception. Their ordinary food, according to Strehlow, was the same as that of the corresponding animal (see Strehlow, I, p. 4).
[374] Also, this whole theory rests upon an entirely arbitrary hypothesis: Spencer and Gillen, as well as Frazer, admit that the tribes of central Australia, and especially the Arunta, represent the most archaic and consequently the purest form of totemism. We shall presently say why this conjecture seems to us to be contrary to all probability. It is even probable that these authors would not have accepted their thesis so readily if they had not refused to regard totemism as a religion and if they had not consequently misunderstood the sacred character of the totem.
[376] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 160, 167. It is not enough that the intermediary be of another totem: as we shall see, every totem of a phratry is forbidden in a certain measure for the members of the phratry who are of a different totem.
[377] _Nor. Tr._, p. 167. We can now explain more easily how it happens that when an interdiction is not observed, it is the other phratry which revenges this sacrilege (see above, p. 129, n. 2). It is because it has an interest in seeing that the rule is observed. In fact, they believe that when the rule is broken, the totemic species may not reproduce abundantly. Now the members of the other phratry consume it regularly: therefore it is they who are affected. That is why they revenge themselves.
[378] This is the case among the Loritja (Strehlow, II, pp. 60, 61), the Worgaia, the Warramunga, the Walpari, the Mara, the Anula and the Binbinga (_Nor. Tr._, pp. 166, 167, 171, 173). It may be eaten by a Warramunga or a Walpari, but only when offered by a member of the other phratry. Spencer and Gillen remark (p. 167, n.), that in this regard the paternal and the maternal totems appear to be under different rules. It is true that in both cases the offer must come from the other phratry. But when it is a question of the paternal totem, or the totem properly so-called, this phratry is the one to which the totem does not belong; for the maternal totem, the contrary is the case. Probably the principle was first established for the former, then mechanically extended to the other, though the situation was different. When the rule had once become established that the prohibition protecting the totem could be neglected only on the invitation of the other phratry, it was applied also to the maternal totem.
[379] For example, among the Warramunga (_Nor. Tr._, p. 166), the Wotjobaluk, the Buandik, the Kurnai (Howitt, pp. 146 f.) and the Narrinyeri (Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, p. 63).
[380] Even this is not always the case. An Arunta of the Mosquito totem must not kill this insect, even when it bothers him: he must confine himself to driving it away (Strehlow, II, p. 58; cf. Taplin, p. 63).
[381] Among the Kaitish and the Unmatjera (_Nor. Tr._, p. 160). It even happens that in certain cases an old man gives a young one of a different totem one of his churinga, so that he may kill the donor's totem more easily (_ibid._, p. 272).
[382] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 146; Grey, _op. cit._, II, p. 228; Casalis, _Basoutos_, p. 221. Among these latter, "one must be purified after committing such a sacrilege."
[386] Even among the Omaha, it is not certain that the interdictions of contact, certain examples of which we have just cited, are really of a totemic nature, for many of them have no direct connection with the animal that serves as totem of the clan. Thus in the sub-clan of the Eagle, the characteristic interdiction is against touching the head of a buffalo (Dorsey, _op. cit._, p. 239); in another sub-clan with the same totem, they must not touch verdigris, charcoal, etc. (_ibid._, p. 245).
We do not mention other interdictions mentioned by Frazer, such as those of naming or looking at the animal or plant, for it is still less certain that they are of totemic origin, except perhaps for certain facts observed among the Bechuana (_Totemism_, pp. 12-13). Frazer admits too readily--and in this regard, he has imitators--that the prohibitions against eating or touching an animal depend upon totemic beliefs. However, there is one case in Australia, where the sight of the animal seems to be forbidden. According to Strehlow (II, p. 59), among the Arunta and the Loritja, a man who has the moon as totem must not look at it very long, or he would be likely to die at the hand of an enemy. But we believe that this is a unique case. We must not forget, also, that astronomical totems were probably not primitive in Australia, so this prohibition may be the product of a complex elaboration. This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that among the Euahlayi, looking at the moon is forbidden to all mothers and children, no matter what their totems may be (L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 53).
[387] See Bk. III, ch. ii, § 2.
[388] Perhaps there is no religion which makes man an exclusively profane being. For the Christian, the soul which each of us has within him and which constitutes the very essence of our being, has something sacred about it. We shall see that this conception of the soul is as old as religious thought itself. The place of man in the hierarchy of sacred things is more or less elevated.
[391] Among certain clans of the Warramunga, for example (_Nor. Tr._, p. 162).
[392] Among the Urabunna (_Nor. Tr._, p. 147). Even when they tell us that the first beings were men, these are really only semi-human, and have an animal nature at the same time. This is the case with certain Unmatjera (_ibid._, pp. 153-154). Here we find ways of thought whose confusion disconcerts us, but which must be accepted as they are. We would denature them if we tried to introduce a clarity that is foreign to them (cf. _Nat. Tr._, p. 119).
[393] Among the Arunta (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 388 ff.); and among certain Unmatjera (_Nor. Tr._, p. 153).
[395] _Nat. Tr._, p. 389; Strehlow, I, pp. 2 ff. Undoubtedly there is an echo of the initiation rites in this mythical theme. The initiation also has the object of making the young man into a complete man, and on the other hand, it also implies actual surgical operations (circumcision, sub-incision, the extraction of teeth, etc.). The processes which served to form the first men would naturally be conceived on the same model.
[396] This the case with the nine clans of the Moqui (Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, IV, p. 86), the Crain clan among the Ojibway (Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 180), and the Nootka clans (Boas, _VIth Rep. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada_, p. 43), etc.
[397] It is thus that the Turtle clan of the Iroquois took form. A group of turtles had been forced to leave the lake where they dwelt and seek another home. One of them, which was larger than the others, stood this exercise very badly owing to the heat. It made such violent efforts that it got out of its shell. The process of transformation, being once commenced, went on by itself and the turtle finally became a man who was the ancestor of the clan (Erminnie A. Smith, _The Myths of the Iroquois, IInd Report_, p. 77). The Crab clan of the Choctaw was formed in a similar manner. Some men surprised a certain number of crabs that lived in the neighbourhood, took them home with them, taught them to talk and to walk, and finally adopted them into their society (Catlin, _North American Indians_, II, p. 128).
[398] For example, here is a legend of the Tsimshian. In the course of a hunt, an Indian met a black bear which took him to its home, and taught him to catch salmon and build canoes. The man stayed with the bear for two years, and then returned to his native village. But the people were afraid of him, because he was just like a bear. He could not talk or eat anything except raw food. Then he was rubbed with magic herbs and gradually regained his original form. After that, whenever he was in trouble, he called upon his bear friends, who came to aid him. He built a house and painted a bear on the foundation. His sister made a blanket for the dance, upon which a bear was designed. That is why the descendants of this sister had the bear as their emblem (Boas, _Kwakiutl_, p. 323. Cf. _Vth Rep. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada_, pp. 23, 29 ff.; Hill Tout, _Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh of British Columbia_, in _J.A.I._, 1905, XXXV, p. 150).
Thus we see the inconveniences in making this mystical relationship between the man and the animal the distinctive characteristic of totemism, as M. Van Gennep proposes (_Totémisme et méthode comparative_, in _Revue de l'histoire des religions_, Vol. LVIII, July, 1908, p. 55). This relationship is a mythical representation of otherwise profound facts; but it may be omitted without causing the disappearance of the essential traits of totemism. Undoubtedly there are always close bonds between the people of the clan and the totemic animal, but these are not necessarily bonds of blood-relationship, though they are frequently conceived in this form.
[399] There are also some Tlinkit myths in which the relationship of descent between the man and the animal is still more carefully stated. It is said that the clan is descended from a mixed union, if we may so speak, that is to say, one where either the husband or the wife was an animal of the species whose name the clan bears (see Swanton, _Social Condition, Beliefs, etc., of the Tlinkit Indians_, _XXVIth Rep._, pp. 415-418).
[402] See Bk. III, ch. ii. Cf. _Nat. Tr._, pp. 184, 201.
[404] Among the Dieri and the Parnkalla. See Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 658, 661, 668, 669-671.
[405] Among the Warramunga, the blood from the circumcision is drunk by the mother (_Nor. Tr._, p. 352). Among the Binbinga, the blood on the knife which was used in the sub-incision must be licked off by the initiate (_ibid._, p. 368). In general, the blood coming from the genital organs is regarded as especially sacred (_Nat. Tr._, p. 464; _Nor. Tr._, p. 598).
[408] _Ibid._, pp. 442, 464. This myth is quite common in Australia.
[411] _Ibid._ It is believed that if all these formalities are not rigorously observed, grave calamities will fall upon the individual.
[413] After the foreskin has been detached by circumcision, it is sometimes hidden, just like the blood; it has special virtues; for example, it assures the fecundity of certain animal and vegetable species (_Nor. Tr._, pp. 353 f.). The whiskers are mixed with the hair, and treated as such (_ibid._, pp. 604, 544). They also play a part in the myths (_ibid._, p. 158). As for the fat, its sacred character is shown by the use made of it in certain funeral rites.