[414] This is not saying that the woman is absolutely profane. In the myths, at least among the Arunta, she plays a religious rôle much more important than she does in reality (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 195 f.). Even now she takes part in certain initiation rites. Finally, her blood has religious virtues (see _Nat. Tr._, p. 464; cf. _La prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines_, _Année Sociol._, I, pp. 41 ff.).
It is upon this complex situation of the woman that the exogamic restrictions depend. We do not speak of them here because they concern the problem of domestic and matrimonial organization more directly than the present one.
[416] Among the Wakelbura, according to Howitt, p. 146; among the Bechuana, according to Casalis, _Basoutos_, p. 221.
[417] Among the Buandik and Kurnai (Howitt, _ibid._); among the Arunta (Strehlow, II, p. 58).
[419] In the Tully River district, says Roth (_Superstition, Magic and Medicine_, in _North Queensland Ethnography_, No. 5, § 74), as an individual goes to sleep or gets up in the morning, he pronounces in a rather low voice the name of the animal after which he is named himself. The purpose of this practice is to make the man clever or lucky in the hunt, or be forewarned of the dangers to which he may be exposed from this animal. For example, a man who has a species of serpent as his totem is protected from bites if this invocation has been made regularly.
[424] _Ibid._ [430] Durkheim and Mauss, _De quelques formes primitives de classification_, in _Année Sociol._, VI, pp. 1 ff.
[432] Curr and Fison were both informed by the same person, D. S. Stewart.
[433] Mathews, _Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria_, in _Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, pp. 287 f.; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 121.
[434] The feminine form of the names given by Mathews is Gurogigurk and Gamatykurk. These are the forms which Howitt reproduces, with a slightly different orthography. The names are also equivalent to those used by the Mount Gambier tribe (Kumite and Kroki).
[435] The native name of this clan is Dyàlup, which Mathews does not translate. This word appears to be identical with Jallup, by which Howitt designates a sub-clan of the same tribe, and which he translates "mussel." That is why we think we can hazard this translation.
[436] This is the translation of Howitt; Mathews renders the word Wartwurt, "heat of the midday sun."
[437] The tables of Mathews and Howitt disagree on many important points. It even seems that clans attributed by Howitt to the Kroki phratry are given to the Gamutch phratry by Mathews, and inversely. This proves the great difficulties that these observations present. But these differences are without interest for our present question.
[438] Mrs. Langloh Parker, _The Euahlayi Tribe_, pp. 12 ff.
[439] The facts will be found below.
[440] Carr, III, p. 27. Cf. Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 112. We are merely mentioning the most characteristic facts. For details, one may refer to the memoir already mentioned on _Les classifications primitives_.
[443] This is especially clear among the Haida. Swanton says that with them every animal has two aspects. First, it is an ordinary animal to be hunted and eaten; but it is also a supernatural being in the animal's form, upon which men depend. The mythical beings corresponding to cosmic phenomena have the same ambiguity (Swanton, _ibid._, 16, 14, 25).
[444] See above, p. 142. This is the case among the Gournditch-mara (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 124), in the tribes studied by Cameron near the Dead Lake, and among the Wotjobaluk (_ibid._, pp. 125, 250).
[446] Among the Osage, for example (see Dorsey, _Siouan Sociology_, in _XVth Rep._, pp. 233 ff.).
[447] At Mabuiag, an island in Torrès' Strait (Haddon, _Head Hunters_, p. 132), the same opposition is found between the two phratries of the Arunta: one includes the men of a water totem, the other those of earth (Strehlow, I, p. 6).
[448] Among the Iroquois there is a sort of tournament between the two phratries (Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 94). Among the Haida, says Swanton, the members of the two phratries of the Eagle and the Crow "are frequently considered as avowed enemies. Husband and wife (who must be of different phratries) do not hesitate to betray each other" (_The Haida_, p. 62). In Australia this hostility is carried into the myths. The two animals serving the phratries as totems are frequently represented as in a perpetual war against each other (see J. Mathews, _Eaglehawk and Crow, a study of Australian Aborigines_, pp. 14 ff.). In games, each phratry is the natural rival of the other (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 770).
[449] So Thomas has wrongly urged against our theory of the origin of the phratries its inability to explain their opposition (_Kinship and Marriage_, p. 69). We do not believe that it is necessary to connect this opposition to that of the profane and the sacred (see Hertz, _La prééminence de la main droite_, in the _Revue Philosophique_, Dec., 1909, p. 559). The things of one phratry are not profane for the other; both are a part of the same religious system (see below, p. 155).
[450] For example, the clan of the Tea-tree includes the grasses, and consequently herbivorous animals (see _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 169). This is undoubtedly the explanation of a particularity of the totemic emblems of North America pointed out by Boas. "Among the Tlinkit," he says, "and all the other tribes of the coast, the emblem of a group includes the animals serving as food to the one whose name the group bears" (_Fifth Rep. of the Committee, etc., British Association for the Advancement of Science_, p. 25).
[451] Thus, among the Arunta, frogs are connected with the totem of the gum-tree, because they are frequently found in the cavities of this tree; water is related to the water-hen; with the kangaroo is associated a sort of parrot frequently seen flying about this animal (Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 146-147, 448).
[452] One of the signs of this primitive lack of distinction is that territorial bases are sometimes assigned to the classes just as to the social divisions with which they were at first confounded. Thus, among the Wotjobaluk in Australia and the Zuñi in America, things are ideally distributed among the different regions of space, just as the clans are. Now this regional distribution of things and that of the clans coincide (see _De quelques formes primitives de classification_, pp. 34 ff.). Classifications keep something of this special character even among relatively advanced peoples, as for example, in China (_ibid._, pp. 55 ff.).
[454] Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 168; Howitt, _Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems, J.A.I._, XVIII, p. 60.
[455] Curr, III, p. 461. This is about the Mount Gambier tribe.
[459] Mathews, _Ethnological Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria_, in _Journ. and Proceed. of the Royal Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 294.
[460] Cf. Curr, III, p. 461; and Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 146. The expressions _Tooman_ and _Wingo_ are applied to the one and the other.
[462] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 447 ff.; cf. Strehlow, III, pp. xii ff.
[468] However, there are certain tribes in Queensland where the things thus attributed to a social group are not forbidden for the members of the group: this is notably the case with the Wakelbura. It is to be remembered that in this society, it is the matrimonial classes that serve as the framework of the classification (see above, p. 144). Not only are the men of one class allowed to eat the animals attributed to this class, but _they may eat no others_. All other food is forbidden them (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 113; Curr, III, p. 27).
But we must not conclude from this that these animals are considered profane. In fact, it should be noticed that the individual not only has the privilege of eating them, but that he is compelled to do so, for he cannot nourish himself otherwise. Now the imperative nature of this rule is a sure sign that we are in the presence of things having a religious nature, only this has given rise to a positive obligation rather than the negative one known as an interdiction. Perhaps it is not quite impossible to see how this deviation came about. We have seen above (p. 140) that every individual is thought to have a sort of property-right over his totem and consequently over the things dependent upon it. Perhaps, under the influence of special circumstances, this aspect of the totemic relation was developed, and they naturally came to believe that only the members of the clan had the right of disposing of their totem and all that is connected with it, and that others, on the contrary, did not have the right of touching it. Under these circumstances, a tribe could nourish itself only on the food attributed to it.
[469] Mrs. Parker uses the expression "multiplex totems."
[470] As examples, see the Euahlayi tribe in Mrs. Parker's book (pp. 15 ff.) and the Wotjobaluk (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 121 ff.; cf. the above-mentioned article of Mathews).
[471] See the examples in Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 122.
[473] Strehlow, II, pp. 61-72.
[476] Strehlow, III, pp. xiii-xviii. It sometimes happens that the same secondary totems are attached to two or three principal totems at the same time. This is undoubtedly because Strehlow has not been able to establish with certainty which is the principal totem.
Two interesting facts which appear from this table confirm certain propositions which we had already formulated. First, the principal totems are nearly all animals, with but rare exceptions. Also, stars are always only secondary or associated totems. This is another proof that these latter were only slowly advanced to the rank of totems and that at first the principal totems were preferably chosen from the animal kingdom.
[477] According to the myth, the associate totems served as food to the men of the principal totem in the fabulous times, or, when these are trees, they gave their shade (Strehlow, III, p. xii; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 403). The fact that the associate totems are believed to have been eaten does not imply that they are considered profane; for in the mythical period, the principal totem itself was consumed by the ancestors, the founders of the clan, according to the belief.
[478] Thus in the Wild Cat clan, the designs carved on the churinga represent the Hakea tree, which is a distinct totem to-day (Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 147 f.). Strehlow (III, p. xii, n. 4) says that this is frequent.
[482] Thus Spencer and Gillen speak of a pigeon called Inturrita, sometimes as a principal totem (_Nat. Tr._, p. 410), sometimes as an associate totem (_ibid._, p. 448).
[484] Thus it comes about that the clan has frequently been confounded with the tribe. This confusion, which frequently introduces trouble into the writings of ethnologists, has been made especially by Curr (I, pp. 61 ff.).
[485] This is the case especially among the Warramunga (_Nor. Tr._, p. 298).
[486] See, for example, Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 380 and _passim_.
[487] One might even ask if tribal totems do not exist sometimes. Thus, among the Arunta, there is an animal, the wild cat, which serves as totem to a particular clan, but which is forbidden for the whole tribe; even the people of other clans can eat it only very moderately (_Nat. Tr._, p. 168). But we believe that it would be an abuse to speak of a tribal totem in this case, for it does not follow from the fact that the free consumption of an animal is forbidden that this is a totem. Other causes can also give rise to an interdiction. The religious unity of the tribe is undoubtedly real, but this is affirmed with the aid of other symbols. We shall show what these are below (Bk. II, ch. ix).
[488] The totems belong to the tribe in the sense that this is interested as a body in the cult which each clan owes to its totem.
[489] Frazer has made a very complete collection of the texts relative to individual totemism in North America (_Totemism and Exogamy_, III, pp. 370-456).
[490] For example, among the Hurons, the Iroquois, the Algonquins (Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, VI, pp. 67-70; Sagard, _Le grand voyage au pays des Hurons_, p. 160), or among the Thompson Indians (Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, p. 355).
[491] This is the case of the Yuin (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 133), the Kurnai (_ibid._, p. 135), several tribes of Queensland (Roth, _Superstition, Magic and Medicine, North Queensland Ethnography_, Bulletin No. 5, p. 19; Haddon, _Head-Hunters_, p. 193); among the Delaware (Heckewelder, _An Account of the History...of the Indian Nations_, p. 238), among the Thompson Indians (Teit, _op. cit._, p. 355), and among the Salish Statlumh (Hill Tout, _Rep. of the Ethnol. of the Statlumh_, _J.A.I._, XXXV. pp. 147 ff.).
[494] _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_, new edition, VI, pp. 172 ff.
[500] Miss Fletcher, _The Import of the Totem, a Study from the Omaha Tribe_ (_Smithsonian Rep. for 1897_, p. 583).--Similar facts will be found in Teit, _op. cit._, pp. 354, 356; Peter Jones, _History of the Ojibway Indians_, p. 87.
[501] This is the case, for example, with the dog among the Salish Statlumh, owing to the condition of servitude in which it lives (Hill Tout, _loc. cit._, p. 153).
[503] "The spirit of a man," says Mrs. Parker (_ibid._), "is in his Yuanbeai (his individual totem), and his Yuanbeai is in him."
[504] Langloh Parker, _Euahlayi_, p. 20. It is the same among certain Salish (Hill Tout, _Ethn. Rep. on the Stseelis and Skaulits Tribes_, _J.A.I._, XXXIV, p. 324). The fact is quite general among the Indians of Central America (Brinton, _Nagualism, a Study in Native American Folklore and History_, in _Proceed. of the Am. Philos. Soc._, XXXIII, p. 32).
[505] Parker, _ibid._; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 147; Dorsey, _Siouan Cults, XIth Rep._, p. 443. Frazer has made a collection of the American cases and established the generality of the interdiction (_Totemism and Exogamy_, III, p. 450). It is true that in America, as we have seen, the individual must kill the animal whose skin serves to make what ethnologists call his medicine-sack. But this usage has been observed in five tribes only; it is probably a late and altered form of the institution.
[507] Meyer, _Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Encounter Bay Tribe_, in Woods, p. 197.
[509] Facts will be found in Hill Tout, _Rep. of the Ethnol. of the Statlumh_, _J.A.I._, XXXV, pp. 144, 145. Cf. Langloh Parker, _op. cit._, p. 29.
[510] According to information given by Howitt in a personal letter to Frazer (_Totemism and Exogamy_, I, p. 495, and n. 2).
[511] Hill Tout, _Ethnol. Rep. on the Stseelis and Skaulits Tribes_, _J.A.I._, XXXIV, p. 324.
[512] Howitt, _Australian Medicine Men_, _J.A.I._, XVI, p. 34; Lafitau, _M[oe]urs des Sauvages Amériquains_, I, p. 370; Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, VI, p. 68. It is the same with the _atai_ and _tamaniu_ in Mota (Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 250 f.).
[513] Thus the line of demarcation between the animal protectors and fetishes, which Frazer has attempted to establish, does not exist. According to him, fetishism commences when the protector is an individual object and not a class (_Totemism_, p. 56); but it frequently happens in Australia that a determined animal takes this part (see Howitt, _Australian Medicine Men_, _J.A.I._, XVI, p. 34). The truth is that the ideas of fetish and fetishism do not correspond to any definite thing.
[516] Hill Tout, _Rep. on the Ethnol. of the Statlumh of British Columbia_, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 142.
[517] Hill Tout, _Ethnol. Rep. on the Stseelis and Skaulits Tribes_, _J.A.I._, XXXIV, pp. 311 ff.
[520] J. W. Powell, _An American View of Totemism_, in _Man_, 1902, No. 84; Tylor, _ibid._, No. 1; Andrew Lang has expressed analogous ideas in _Social Origins_, pp. 133-135. Also Frazer himself, turning from his former opinion, now thinks that until we are better acquainted with the relations existing between collective totems and "guardian spirits," it would be better to designate them by different names (_Totemism and Exogamy_, III, p. 456).
[521] This is the case in Australia among the Yuin (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 81), and the Narrinyeri (Meyer, _Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Encounter Bay Tribe_, in Woods, pp. 197 ff.).
[522] "The totem resembles the patron of the individual no more than an escutcheon resembles the image of a saint," says Tylor (_op. cit._, p. 2). Likewise, if Frazer has taken up the theory of Tylor, it is because he refuses all religious character to the totem of the clan (_Totemism and Exogamy_, III, p. 452).
[523] See below, chapter ix of this book.
[524] Yet according to one passage in Mathews, the individual totem is hereditary among the Wotjobaluk. "Each individual," he says, "claims some animal, plant or inanimate object as his special and personal totem, which he inherits from his mother" (_Journ. and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 291). But it is evident that if all the children in the same family had the personal totem of their mother, neither they nor she would really have personal totems at all. Mathews probably means to say that each individual chooses his individual totem from the list of things attributed to the clan of his mother. In fact, we shall see that each clan has its individual totems which are its exclusive property; the members of the other clans cannot make use of them. In this sense, birth determines the personal totem to a certain extent, but to a certain extent only.
[525] Heckewelder, _An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania, in Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society_, I, p. 238.
[527] But some examples are found. The Kurnai magicians see their personal totems revealed to them in dreams (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 387; _On Australian Medicine Men_, in _J.A.I._, XVI, p. 34). The men of Cape Bedford believe that when an old man dreams of something during the night, this thing is the personal totem of the first person he meets the next day (W. E. Roth, _Superstition, Magic and Medicine_, p. 19). But it is probable that only supplementary and accessory totems are acquired in this way; for in this same tribe another process is used at the moment of initiation, as we said in the text.
[528] In certain tribes of which Roth speaks (_ibid._); also in certain tribes near to Maryborough (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 147).
[529] Among the Wiradjuri (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 406; _On Australian Medicine Men_, in _J.A.I._, XVI, p. 50).
[532] Among the Wiradjuri (same references as above, n. 4).
[533] In general, it seems as though these transmissions from father to son never take place except when the father is a shaman or a magician. This is also the case among the Thompson Indians (Teit, _The Thompson Indians_, p. 320) and the Wiradjuri, of whom we just spoke.
[534] Hill Tout (_J.A.I._, XXXV, pp. 146 f.). The essential rite is the blowing upon the skin: if this were not done correctly, the transmission would not take place. As we shall presently see, the breath is the soul. When both breathe upon the skin of the animal, the magician and the recipient each exhale a part of their souls, which are thus fused, while partaking at the same time of the nature of the animal, who also takes part in the ceremony in the form of its symbol.
[537] Hill Tout, in _J.A.I._, XXXV, pp. 143 and 146; _ibid._, XXXIV, p. 324.
[541] Thus at the birth of a child, a tree is planted which is cared for piously; for it is believed that its fate and the child's are united. Frazer, in his _Golden Bough_, gives a number of customs and beliefs translating this same idea in different ways. (Cf. Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, II, pp. 1-55.)
[542] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 148 ff.; Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 194, 201 ff.; Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 52. Petrie also mentions it in Queensland (_Tom Petrie's Reminiscences of Early Queensland_, pp. 62 and 118).
[543] _Journ. and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 339. Must we see a trace of sexual totemism in the following custom of the Warramunga? When a dead person is buried, a bone of the arm is kept. If it is a woman, the feathers of an emu are added to the bark in which it is wrapped up; if it is a man, the feathers of an owl (_Nor. Tr._, p. 169).
[544] Some cases are cited where each sexual group has two sexual totems; thus the Wurunjerri unite the sexual totems of the Kurnai (the emu-wren and the linnet) to those of the Wotjobaluk (the bat and the _nightjar_ owl). See Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 150.
[549] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 200-203; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 149; Petrie, _op. cit._, p. 62. Among the Kurnai, these bloody battles frequently terminate in marriages of which they are, as it were, a sort of ritual precursor. Sometimes they are merely plays (Petrie, _loc. cit._).
[550] On this point, see our study on _La Prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines_, in the _Année Sociologique_, I, pp. 44 ff.
[551] However, as we shall presently see (ch. ix), there is a connection between the sexual totems and the great gods.
[552] _Primitive Culture_, I, p. 402; II, p. 237; _Remarks on Totemism, with especial reference to some modern theories concerning it_, in _J.A.I._, XXVIII, and I, New Series, p. 138.
[553] _Het Animisme bij den Volken van den indischen Archipel_, pp. 69-75.
[555] Tylor, _ibid._, II, pp. 6-18.
[556] G. McCall Theal, _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, VII. We are acquainted with this work only through an article by Frazer, _South African Totemism_, published in _Man_, 1901, No. III.
[557] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 32 f., and a personal letter by the same author cited by Tylor in _J.A.I._, XXVIII, p. 147.
[558] This is practically the solution adopted by Wundt (_Mythus und Religion_, II, p. 269).
[559] It is true that according to Tylor's theory, a clan is only an enlarged family; therefore whatever may be said of one of these groups is, in his theory, applicable to the other (_J.A.I._, XXVIII, p. 157). But this conception is exceedingly contestable; only the clan presupposes a totem, which has its whole meaning only in and through the clan.
[560] For this same conception, see A. Lang, _Social Origins_, p. 150.
[563] Wundt, who has revived the theory of Tylor in its essential lines, has tried to explain this mysterious relationship of the man and the animal in a different way: it was the sight of the corpse in decomposition which suggested the idea. When they saw worms coming out of the body, they thought that the soul was incarnate in them and escaped with them. Worms, and by extension, reptiles (snakes, lizards, etc.), were therefore the first animals to serve as receptacles for the souls of the dead, and consequently they were also the first to be venerated and to play the rôle of totems. It was only subsequently that other animals and plants and even inanimate objects were elevated to the same dignity. But this hypothesis does not have even the shadow of a proof. Wundt affirms (_Mythus und Religion_, II, p. 296) that reptiles are much more common totems than other animals; from this, he concludes that they are the most primitive. But we cannot see what justifies this assertion, in the support of which the author cites no facts. The lists of totems gathered either in Australia or in America do not show that any special species of animal has played a preponderating rôle. Totems vary from one region to another with the flora and fauna. Moreover, if the circle of possible totems was so closely limited at first, we cannot see how totemism was able to satisfy the fundamental principle which says that the two clans or sub-clans of a tribe must have two different totems.
[564] "Sometimes men adore certain animals," says Tylor, "because they regard them as the reincarnation of the divine souls of the ancestors; this belief is a sort of bridge between the cult rendered to shades and that rendered to animals" (_Primitive Culture_, II, p. 805, cf. 309, _in fine_). Likewise, Wundt presents totemism as a section of animalism (II, p. 234).
[566] _Introduction to the History of Religions_, pp. 97 ff.
[568] Jevons recognizes this himself, saying, "It is to be presumed that in the choice of an ally he would prefer...the kind or species which possessed the greatest power" (p. 101).
[569] 2nd Edition, III, pp. 416 ff.; see especially p. 419, n. 5. In more recent articles, to be analysed below, Frazer exposes a different theory, but one which does not, in his opinion, completely exclude the one in the _Golden Bough_.
[570] _The Origin of the Totemism of the Aborigines of British Columbia_, in _Proc. and Transact. of the Roy. Soc. of Canada_, 2nd series, VII, § 2, pp. 3 ff. Also, _Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh_, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 141. Hill Tout has replies to various objections made to his theory in Vol. IX of the _Transact. of the Roy. Soc. of Canada_, pp. 61-99.
[571] Alice C. Fletcher, _The Import of the Totem_, in _Smithsonian Report for 1897_, pp. 577-586.
[575] _Ibid._, p. 150. Cf. _Vth Rep. on the...N.W. Tribes of Canada_, _B.A.A.S._, p. 24. A myth of this sort has been quoted above.
[578] See _The Golden Bough_,[2] III, pp. 351 ff. Wilken had already pointed out similar facts in _De Simsonsage_, in _De Gids_, 1890; _De Betrekking tusschen Menschen-Dieren en Plantenleven_, in _Indische Gids_, 1884, 1888; _Ueber das Haaropfer_, in _Revue Coloniale Internationale_, 1886-1887.
[579] For example, Eylmann in _Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien_, p. 199.
[580] Mrs. Parker says in connection with the Euahlayi, that if the Yunbeai does "confer exceptional force, it also exposes one to exceptional dangers, for all that hurts the animal wounds the man" (_Euahlayi_, p. 29).
[581] In a later work (_The Origin of Totemism_, in _The Fortnightly Review_, May, 1899, pp. 844-845), Frazer raises this objection himself. "If," he says, "I deposit my soul in a hare, and my brother John (a member of another clan) shoots that hare, roasts and swallows it, what becomes of my soul? To meet this obvious danger it is necessary that John should know the state of my soul, and that, knowing it, he should, whenever he shoots a hare, take steps to extract and restore to me my soul before he cooks and dines upon the animal." Now Frazer believes that he has found this practice in use in Central Australia. Every year, in the course of a ceremony which we shall describe presently, when the animals of the new generation arrive at maturity, the first game to be killed is presented to men of that totem, who eat a little of it; and it is only after this that the men of the other clans may eat it freely. This, says Frazer, is a way of returning to the former the souls they may have confided to these animals. But, aside from the fact that this interpretation of the fact is wholly arbitrary, it is hard not to find this way of escaping the danger rather peculiar. This ceremony is annual; long days may have elapsed since the animal was killed. During all this time, what has become of the soul which it sheltered and the individual whose life depended on this soul? But it is superfluous to insist upon all the inconceivable things in this explanation.
[583] According to Hill Tout himself, "The gift or transmission (of a personal totem) can only be made or effected by certain persons, such as shamans, or those who possess great mystery power" (_J.A.I._, p. 146). Cf. Langloh Parker, _op. cit._, pp. 29-30.
[584] Cf. Hartland, _Totemism and some recent Discoveries_, in _Folk-Lore_, XI, pp. 59 ff.
[585] Except perhaps the Kurnai; but even in this tribe, there are sexual totems in addition to the personal ones.
[586] Among the Wotjobaluk, the Buandik, the Wiradjuri, the Yuin and the tribes around Maryborough (Queensland). See Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 114-147; Mathews, _J. of the R. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 291. Cf. Thomas, _Further Notes on Mr. Hill Tout's Views on Totemism_, in _Man_, 1904, p. 85.
[587] This is the case with the Euahlayi and the facts of personal totemism cited by Howitt, _Australian Medicine Men_, in _J.A.I._, XVI, pp. 34, 35, 49-50.
[588] Miss Fletcher, _A Study of the Omaha Tribe_, in _Smithsonian Report for 1897_, p. 586; Boas, _The Kwakiutl_, p. 322. Likewise, _Vth Rep. of the Committee...of the N.W. Tribes of the Dominion of Canada, B.A.A.S._, p. 25; Hill Tout, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 148.
[589] The proper names of the _gentes_, says Boas in regard to the Tlinkit, are derived from their respective totems, each gens having its special names. The connection between the name and the (collective) totem is not very apparent sometimes, but it always exists (_Vth Rep. of the Committee, etc._, p. 25). The fact that individual forenames are the property of the clan, and characterize it as surely as the totem, is also found among the Iroquois (Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 78), the Wyandot (Powell, _Wyandot Government_, in _Ist Rep._, p. 59), the Shawnee, Sauk and Fox (Morgan, _Ancient Society_, pp. 72, 76-77) and the Omaha (Dorsey, _Omaha Sociology_, in _IIIrd Rep._, pp. 227 ff.). Now the relation between forenames and personal totems is already known (see above, p. 157).
[590] "For example," says Mathews, "if you ask a Wartwurt man what totem he is, he will first tell his personal totem, and will probably then enumerate those of his clan" (_Jour. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 291).
[591] _The Beginnings of Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines_, in _Fortnightly Review_, July, 1905, pp. 162 ff., and Sept., p. 452. Cf. the same author, _The Origin of Totemism_, _ibid._, April, 1899, p. 648, and May, p. 835. These latter articles, being slightly older, differ from the former on one point, but the foundation of the theory is not essentially different. Both are reproduced in _Totemism and Exogamy_, I, pp. 89-172. In the same sense, see Spencer and Gillen, _Some Remarks on Totemism as applied to Australian Tribes_, in _J.A.I._, 1899, pp. 275-280, and the remarks of Frazer on the same subject, _ibid._, pp. 281-286.
[592] "Perhaps we may...say that it is but one remove from the original pattern, the absolutely original form of totemism" (_Fortnightly Review_, Sept., 1905. p. 455).
[593] On this point, the testimony of Strehlow (II, p. 52) confirms that of Spencer and Gillen. For a contrary opinion, see A. Lang, _The Secret of the Totem_, p. 190.
[594] A very similar idea had already been expressed by Haddon in his _Address to the Anthropological Section_ (_B.A.A.S._, 1902, pp. 8 ff.). He supposes that at first, each local group had some food which was especially its own. The plant or animal thus serving as the principal item of food became the totem of the group.
All these explanations naturally imply that the prohibitions against eating the totemic animal were not primitive, but were even preceded by a contrary prescription.
[597] Though considering totemism only a system of magic, Frazer recognizes that the first germs of a real religion are sometimes found in it (_Fortn. Rev._, July, 1905, p. 163). On the way in which he thinks religion developed out of magic, see _The Golden Bough_,^2 I, pp. 75-78.