Chapter V: Totemism and Taboo (2)

+491+. Wyandot (Huron) myths[843] 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 stock[844] 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 Ra[h)]el (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 organization[879] 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 places[898] 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.

+541+. It thus appears that several lines of social progress have proved unfavorable to totemism, and to these movements it has generally succumbed. Its home has been, and is, in isolated hunting communities; agriculture and social intercourse have been fatal to it as to all early forms of society based on a belief in kinship with nonhuman natural objects.

+542+. It remains to mention the principal theories of the origin of totemism that are or have been held, and to ask what part it has played in the history of religion.

+543+. _Theories of the origin of totemism._ These may conveniently be divided into such as refer the origin to individual action, and such as refer it to the action of clans.

+544+. _Individualistic theories._ Among the earliest of theories were those that explained the totemic constitution as due to a confusion in the minds of savages between names and things. Individuals or families might be named after animals, plants, and other objects, and these, it was supposed, might come to be regarded as intimately associated with human persons, and might be looked on with affection or reverence and even worshiped.[899] Or, more definitely, it was held that, the origin of such names being forgotten, reverence for the ancestors led to reverence for the things after which they were named and identification with them--a man whose ancestor was called "the Tiger" would think of himself as descended from a tiger and as being of the tiger stock.[900] It is now generally recognized, however, that the origin of so widespread and influential a system of organization as totemism cannot be referred to a mere misunderstanding of nicknames; and whether such misunderstanding was general or natural in early times is open to doubt.

+545+. It sometimes happens that a man (generally a chief) announces that after death he will take the form of this or that animal or plant, and this procedure, it has been supposed, would found a totemic family--his descendants would revere the object in question as the embodiment of the spirit of the ancestor, would take its name, and, when it was edible, would refrain from eating it.[901] It is true that the belief was, and is, not uncommon among savages that a deceased person might take the form of some natural object; but the reported cases are rare in which a man deliberately enjoins on his descendants reverence for such an object with the result that a quasi-totemic group arises.[902] This custom is not frequent enough to account for totemism.

+546+. A theory suggested by the fact that many clans perform magical ceremonies (for the purpose of increasing the supply of food) is that, when the magical apparatus of some body of persons consisted of parts of an animal, the animal would become sacred, a magical society might be formed by an individual magician, and thus a totemic magic-working clan might be created. For this hypothesis there is no support except in the fact that changes in clan life are sometimes brought about by the old men; but such changes are modifications of existing usages, not new creations. The power of a savage man of genius may be admitted, but to account for the known totemic communities we should have to suppose a vast number of such men, in different parts of the world, all working in the same direction and reaching substantially the same results.

+547+. The belief that a man might deposit his soul in an animal or a plant or some other object is found in West Africa, North America, and probably elsewhere. As such objects would, as a rule, not be killed (and every individual of a group would be thus respected), it has been supposed that, when various persons deposited their souls in the same object, a totemic body would come into existence.[903] This view would account for totemic reverence and for the sense of kinship, but the objection to it is that in most totemic organizations the belief in question has not been certified.

+548+. The "conceptional" theory refers the origin of totemism to the belief, found among certain peoples, that conception is produced by the entrance into the mother's womb of some object (animal, plant, or other) with which the child is identified.[904] In Central Australia it is held that what passes into the woman is a spirit child which has a certain object for its totem; but in this case the previous existence of the totem is assumed. In certain islands (Mota and Motlav) of the Banks group, however, there exists, it is said, the belief that a child is the object from which the mother received some influence at conception or at some other period of pregnancy--the child resembles the object, and may not eat it if it is edible.[905] The persons thus identified with a given object would, if united, constitute a group totemic in the respects that they believe themselves to be one with the object in question and refrain from eating it.[906] The totemic object is selected, in the case of every child, by the fancy of the mother, and is, therefore, not inherited; totemic groups, thus, would be found distributed through the larger groups (phratries or tribes), and might also gradually coalesce and form local groups. If the belief in this origin of birth (identity of the child with some object) were found to be widespread, and generally effective as the ground of early social organization, it would furnish a satisfactory explanation of totemistic beginnings. But in point of fact it has so far been found, in full form, only in a small region in Melanesia, and its history in this region is not known; back of it may lie some other system of organization. And in this region clan totemism is lacking or faint. Further testimony is needed before it can be accepted as the solution of the problem of totemic origins.[907]

+549+. A similar remark must be made in reference to theories based on the belief that the souls of the dead are incarnate in animals and plants. Such a belief is a natural outgrowth from the conception of the identity of nature of human beings and animals, and it occurs in so many parts of the world (Oceania, Africa, America) that it might naturally be regarded as having been at one time universal, though it is not now found everywhere. Reverence for an ancestor might be, and sometimes is, transferred to the object in which he is supposed to be incarnate; from this object a man holds himself to be descended, and he refrains from eating or injuring it.[908] This view, a combination of reverence for ancestors and reverence for animals and plants, thus supplies two features of totemistic organization, but proof is lacking that it is the basis of this organization. If it be the determining consideration in some cases, there are many cases in which its influence is not apparent. There are myths tracing the totemism of clans to ancestors having animal forms, but these myths are relatively late savage philosophical explanations of existing institutions.

+550+. The relation of the individual patron and guardian to the clan totem has been variously defined. Such a patron, it is sometimes held (obtained by a dream or a vision), descends from the original possessor to his children (or, in a matrilineal system, to his sister's children), and thus becomes the patron (the totem) of a family or kin; and a larger group, formed by the union of several kins, may similarly have its protecting spirit. Cases in which descent is through the mother here make a difficulty--a man's guardian spirit would not then be inherited. Granting that the personal patron of a shaman or of an ordinary man may be inherited, such inheritance appears to be of rare occurrence, and there is no trustworthy evidence that it ever leads to the formation of a totemic clan.

+551+. It is true there is a resemblance between a man's relation to his clan totem and his relation to his personal guardian--in both cases the sacred object is revered and spared. It is sometimes the case also (as, for example, among the Australian Arunta) that the totem comes through an individual (the mother) and is not transmissible, and yet endogamous clans arise by the union of persons having the same totem. But here the resemblance ceases--the Arunta child's totem is determined for him before his birth, but a man chooses his personal guardian for himself, and joins others having the same guardian, not in a clan but in a secret society. Furthermore, the institution of the personal guardian is very rare except in North America, and there flourishes in inverse proportion to the strength of clan life proper.

+552+. On the supposition of the primitive predominance of the rule of descent through the mother individualistic theories of the origin of totemism, with one exception, are out of the question--the totem is first chosen by a man, but children would have the totem not of the father but of the mother. The exception is the conceptional theory, in which the totem is determined by the mother--especially the Mota (Banks Islands) form, in which the choice of a sacred object by the woman is unlimited. In a small community a certain number of women would, however, choose the same object, and thus totemic groups would arise. This scheme of organization, though not open to the objection mentioned above, is geographically limited.

+553+. _Theories based on clan action._ Here the starting-point is the clan, which is supposed to have come into existence somehow; it is not essential to determine precisely the method of its origination, though the question of method is sometimes included in the discussion of a theory. The clan finds itself confronted by various natural objects with which, it believes, it must form helpful relations; or some sort of relation is forced on it by the conditions of life. The question is how a human group came to enter into the totemic relation.

+554+. The simplest answer is that the primitive clan deliberately chose among all associated objects some one to be its particular friend or its special associate,[909] naturally valued and respected this object, refrained from eating it when it was edible, took its name, came to regard it as ancestor, and created myths explanatory of these conceptions. This general theory has assumed various forms, but the objection usually made to its central supposition is that such deliberate choice is out of keeping with the known methods of early societies. Though a certain amount of reflection must be assumed for primitive men (the lower animals, indeed, show reflection), it is held that so elaborate a system as totemism, like other institutions, must have been the product of accidental experiences, developed through a long period of time. Something more definite, it is said, is required in order to account for the details of the system--all that can be safely assumed is that early man, constantly on the alert to better his condition, took advantage of every situation to strengthen himself by taking precautions against enemies or by securing the aid of surrounding objects, human and nonhuman.