But the fact that the things thus attached to the totem are not of a different nature from it, and consequently have a religious character, is best proved by the fact that on certain occasions they fulfil the same functions. They are accessory or secondary totems, or, according to an expression now consecrated by usage, they are sub-totems.5 It is constantly happening in the clans that under the influence of various sympathies, particular affinities are forming, smaller groups and more limited associations arise, which tend to lead a relatively autonomous life and to form a new subdivision like a sub-clan within the larger one. In order to distinguish and individualize itself, this sub-clan needs a special totem or, consequently, a sub-totem.6 Now the totems of these secondary groups are chosen from among the things classified under the principal totem. So they are always almost totems and the slightest circumstance is enough to make them actually so. There is a latent totemic nature in them, which shows itself as soon as conditions permit
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it or demand it. It thus happens that a single individual has two totems, a principal totem common to the whole clan and a sub-totem which is special to the sub-clan of which lie is a member. This is something analogous to the nomen and cognomen of the Romans.1
Sometimes we see a sub-clan emancipate itself completely and become an autonomous group and an independent clan ; then, the sub-totem, on its side, becomes a regular totem. One tribe where this process of segmentation has been pushed to the limit, so to speak, is the Arunta. The information contained in the first book of Spencer and Gillen showed that there were some sixty totems among the Arunta;2 but the recent researches of Strehlow have shown the number to be much larger. He counted no less than 442.3 Spencer and Gillen did not exaggerate at all when they said, " In fact, there is scarcely an object, animate or inanimate, to be found in the country occupied by the natives which does not give its name to some totemic group."4 Now this multitude of totems, whose number is prodigious when compared to the population, is due to the fact that under special circumstances, the original clans have divided and sub-divided infinitely ; consequently nearly all the sub-totems have passed to the stage of totems.
This has been definitely proved by the observations of Strehlow. Spencer and Gillen cited only certain isolated cases of associated totems.5 Strehlow has shown that this is in reality an absolutely general organization. He has been able to draw up a table where nearly all the totems of the Arunta are classified according to this principle : all are attached, either as associates or as auxiliaries, to some sixty principal totems.6 The first are believed to be in the service of the second.7 This state of
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.
5Mrs. Parker uses the expression " multiplex totems."
6As examples, see the Euahlayi tribe in Mrs. Parker's book (pp. 15 и.) and the Wotjobaluk (Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 121 ff.; cf. the above-mentioned article ofMathews).
1See the examples in Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 122.
2See our De quetques formes primitives de classification, p. 28, n. 2.
3Strehlow, II, pp. 61-72.
4Nat. Tr., p. 112.
5See especially Nat. Tr., p. 447, and Nor. Tr., p. 151.
6Strehlow, 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.
7 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.
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dependence is very probably the echo of a time when the " allies " of to-day were only sub-totems, and consequently when the tribe contained only a small number of clans subdivided into sub-clans. Numerous survivals confirm this hypotliesis. It frequently happens that two groups thus associated have the same totemic emblem : now this unity of emblem is explicable only if the two groups were at first only one.1 The relation of the two clans is also shown by the part and the interest that each one takes in the rites of the other. The two cults are still only imperfectly separated ; this is very probably because they were at first completely intermingled.2 Tradition explains the bonds which unite them by imagining that formerly the two clans occupied neighbouring places.3 In other cases, the myth says expressly that one of them was derived from the other. It is related that at first the associated animal belonged to the species still serving as principal totem ; it differentiated itself at a later period. Thus the chantunga birds, which are associated with the witchetly grub to-day, were witchetly grubs in fabulous times, who later transformed themselves into birds. Two species wliich are now attached to the honey-ant were formerly honey-ants, etc.4 This transformation of a subtotem into a totem goes on by imperceptible degrees, so that in certain cases the situation is undecided, and it is hard to say whether one is dealing with a principal totem or a secondary one.5 As Howitt says in regard to the Wotjobaluk, there are sub-totems which are totems in formation.6 Thus the different things classified in a clan constitute, as it were, so many nuclei around which new totemic cults are able to form. This is the best proof of the religious sentiments which they inspire. If they did not have a sacred character, they could not be promoted so easily to the same dignity as the things which are sacred before all others, the regular totems.
So the field of religious things extends well beyond the limits within which it seemed to be confined at first. It embraces not only the totemic animals and the human members of the clan ; but since no known thing exists that is not classified in a clan and under a totem, there is likewise nothing which does not receive
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to some degree something of a religious character. When, in the religions which later come into being, the gods properly so-called appear, each of them will be set over a special category of natural phenomena, this one over the sea, that one over the air, another over the harvest or over fruits, etc., and each of these provinces of nature will be believed to draw what life there is in it from the god upon whom it depends. This division of nature among the different divinities constitutes the conception which these religions give us of the universe. Now so long as humanity has not passed the phase of totemism, the different totems of the tribe fulfil exactly the same functions that will later fall upon the divine personalities. In the Mount Gambier tribe, which we have taken as our principal example, there are ten clans ; consequently the entire world is divided into ten classes, or rather into ten families, each of which has a special totem as its basis. It is from this basis that the things classed in the clan get all their reality, for they are thought of as variant forms of the totemic being ; to return to our example, the rain, thunder, lightning, clouds, hail and winter are regarded as different sorts of crows. When brought together, these ten families of things make up a complete and systematic representation of the world; and this representation is religious, for religious notions furnish its basis. Far from being limited to one or two categories of beings, the domain of totemic religion extends to the final limits of the known universe. Just like the Greek religion, it puts the divine everywhere; the celebrated formula vavra -v\ripri Qewv (everything is full of the gods), might equally well serve it as motto.
1Thus in the Wild Cat clan, the designs carved on the churinga represent the Hakea tree, which is a distinct totem today (Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., Pp. 147 f.). Strehlow (III, p. xii, n. 4) says that this is frequent.
2Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 182 ; Nat. Tr., pp. 151 and 297.
3Nat. Tr., pp. 151 and 158.
4Ibid., pp. 448 and 449.
5Thus Spencer and Gillen speak of a pigeon called Inturrita, sometimes as a principal totem (Nat. Tr., p. 410), sometimes as an associate totem libid., P. 448).
6Howitt, Further Notes, pp. 63-64.
However, if totemism is to be represented thus, the notion of it which has long been held must be modified on one essential point. Until the discoveries of recent years, it was made to consist entirely in the cult of one particular totem, and it was defined as the religion of the clan. From this point of view, each tribe seemed to have as many totemic religions, each independent of the others, as it had different clans. This conception was also in harmony with the idea currently held of the clan ; in fact, this was regarded as an autonomous society,1 more or less closed to other similar societies, or having only external and superficial relations with these latter. But the reality is more complex. Undoubtedly, the cult of each totem has its home in the corresponding clan ; it is there, and only there, that it is celebrated ; it is members of the clan who have charge of it;
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it is through them that it is transmitted from one generation to another, along with the beliefs which are its basis. But it is also true that the different totemic cults thus practised within a single tribe do not have a parallel development, though remaining ignorant of each other, as if each of them constituted a complete and self-sufficing religion. On the contrary, they mutually imply each other ; they are only the parts of a single whole, the elements of a single religion. The men of one clan never regard the beliefs of neighbouring clans with that indifference, scepticism or hostility which one religion ordinarily inspires for another which is foreign to it; they partake of these beliefs themselves. The Crow people are also convinced that the Snake people have a mythical serpent as ancestor, and that they owe special virtues and marvellous powers to this origin. And have we not seen that at least in certain conditions, a man may eat a totem that is not his own only after he has observed certain ritual formalities ? Especially, he must demand the permission of the men of this totem, if any are present. So for him also, this food is not entirely profane ; he also admits that there are intimate affinities between the members of a clan of which he is not a member and the animal whose name they bear. Also, this community of belief is sometimes shown in the cult. If in theory the rites concerning a totem can be performed only by the men of this totem, nevertheless representatives of different clans frequently assist at them. It sometimes happens that their part is not simply that of spectators ; it is true that they do not officiate, but they decorate the officiants and prepare the service. They themselves have an interest in its being celebrated ; therefore, in certain tribes, it is they who invite the qualified clan to proceed with the ceremonies.1 There is even a whole cycle of rites which must take place in the presence of the assembled tribe : these are the totemic ceremonies of initiation.2
Finally, the totemic organization, such as we have just described it, must obviously be the result of some sort of an indistinct understanding between all the members of the tribe. It is impossible that each clan should have made its beliefs in an absolutely independent manner; it is absolutely necessary that the cults of the different totems should be in some way adjusted to each other, since they complete one another exactly. In fact, we have seen that normally a single totem is not repeated twice in the same tribe, and that the whole universe is divided up among the totems thus constituted in such a way that the same object is not found in two different clans. So methodical
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a division could never have been made without an agreement, tacit or planned, in which the whole
tribe participated. So the group of beliefs which thus arise are partially (but only partially) a tribal affair.1
1Thus 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 ft.).
1This is the case especially among the Warramunga (Nor. Tr., p. 298).
2See, for example. Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 380 and passim.
1 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
To sum up, then, in order to form an adequate idea of totemisra, we must not confine ourselves within the limits of the clan, but must consider the tribe as a whole. It is true that the particular cult of each clan enjoys a very great autonomy ; we can now see that it is within the clan that the active ferment of the religious life takes place. But it is also true that these cults fit into each other and the totemic religion is a complex system formed by their union, just as Greek polytheism was made by the union of all the particular cults addressed to the different divinities. We have just shown that, thus understood, totemism also has it cosmology.
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CHAPTER IV
TOTEMIC BELIEFS—end
The Individual Totem and the Sexual Totem
Up to the present, we have studied totemism only as a public institution : the only totems of which we have spoken are common to a clan, a phratry or, in a sense, to a tribe ;1 an individual has a part in them only as a member of a group. But we know that there is no religion which does not have an individual aspect. This general observation is applicable to totemism. In addition to the impersonal and collective totems which hold the first place, there are others which are peculiar to each individual, which express his personality, and whose cult he celebrates in private.
I
In certain Australian tribes, and in the majority of the Indian tribes of North America,2 each individual personally sustains relations with some determined object, which are comparable to those which each clan sustains witli its totem. This is sometimes an inanimate being or an artificial object; but it is generally an animal. In certain cases, a special part of the organism, such as the head, the feet or the liver, fulfils this office.3
The name of the thing also serves as the name of the individual. It is his personal name, his forename, which is added to that of the collective totem, as the praenomen of the Romans was to the nomen genfilicium. It is true that this fact is not reported except in a certain number of societies,4 but it is probably general. In
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fact, we shall presently show that there is an identity of nature between the individual and the thing ; now an identity of nature implies one of name. Being given in the course of especially important religious ceremonies, this forename has a sacred character. It is not pronounced in the ordinary circumstances of profane life. It even happens that the word designating this object in the ordinary language must be modified to a greater or less extent if it is to serve in this particular case.1 This is
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).
1The 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.
2Frazer has made a very complete collection of the texts relative to individual totemism in North America (Totemism and Exogamy, III, pp. 370-456).
3For example, among the Hurons, the Iroquois, the Algonquins (Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, VI, pp. 67-70 ; Sagard, Le grand voyage au fays ues Hurons, p. 160), or among the Thompson Indians (Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, p. 355).
4This is the case of the Yuin (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 133), the Kumai (ibid.., P- I35), several tribes of Queensland (Roth,
Superstition, Magic and Medicine, North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5. p. 19 ; Haddon, Head-Hunters, ?• 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 Statlumli (Hill Tout, Rep. of the Ethnol. of the Statlumh, J-A.I.. XXXV. pp. 147 ff.).
1Hill Tout, loc. cit., p. 154.
because the terms of the usual language are excluded from the religious life.
In certain American tribes, at least, this name is reinforced by an emblem belonging to each individual and representing, under various forms, the thing designated by the name. For example, each Mandan wears the skin of the animal of which he is the namesake.2 If it is a bird, he decorates himself with its feathers.3 The Hurons and Algonquins tattoo their bodies with its image.4 It is represented on their arms.5 Among the northwestern tribes, the individual emblem, just like the collective emblem of the clan, is carved or engraved on the utensils, houses,6 etc. ; it serves as a mark of ownership.7 Frequently the two coats-of-arms are combined together, which partially explains the great diversity of aspects presented by the totemic escutcheons among these peoples.8
Between the individual and his animal namesake there exist the very closest bonds. The man participates in the nature of the animal; he has its good qualities as well as its faults. For example, a man having the eagle as his coat-of-arms is believed to possess the gift of seeing into the future ; if he is named after a bear, they say that he is apt to be wounded in combat, for the bear is heavy and slow and easily caught;9 if the animal is despised, the man is the object of the same sentiment.10 The relationship of the two is even so close that it is believed that in certain circumstances, especially in case of danger, the man can take the form of the animal.11 Inversely, the animal is
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regarded as a double of the man, as his alter ego.1 The association of the two is so close that their destinies are frequently thought to be bound up together : nothing can happen to one without the other's feeling a reaction.2 If the animal dies, the life of the man is menaced. Thus it comes to be a very general rule that one should not kill the animal, nor eat its flesh. This interdiction, which, when concerning the totem of the clan, allows of all sorts of attenuations and modifications, is now much more formal and absolute.3
On its side, the animal protects the man and serves him as a sort of patron. It informs him of possible dangers and of the way of escaping them ;4 they say that it is his friend.5 Since it frequently happens to possess marvellous powers, it communicates them to its human associate, who believes in them, even under the proof of bullets, arrows, and blows of every sort.6 This confidence of an individual in the efficacy of his protector is so great that he braves the greatest
2Catlin, Manners and Customs, etc., London, 1876, I, p. 36.
3Lettres edifiantes et cwieuses, new edition, VI, pp. 172 ff.
4Charlevoix, op. cit., VI, p. 69.
5Dorsey, Siouan Cults, XIth Rep., p. 443.
6Boas, Kwakiuti, p. 323.
7Hill Tout, loc. cit., p. 154.
8Boas, Kwakiuti, p. 323.
9Miss Fletcher, The Import of the Totem, a Study from the Omaha I we (Smithsonian Rep. for 1897, p. 583).— Similar facts will be found in Teit, op. cil., pp. 354 з5б; Peter Jones, History of the Ojibway Indians, p. 87.
10This is the case, for example, with the dog among the Salish Statlurah, owing to the condition of servitude in which it lives (Hill Tout, loc. cit., p. i53)
11Langloh Parker, Euahlayi'p. 21.
1The ^•P11"1! of a man," says Mrs. Parker (ibid.), " is in his Yuanbeai (his individual totem), and his Yuanbeai is in him."
2Langloh Parker, Euahlayi, p. 20. It is the same among certain Salish (Hill Tout, Ethn. Rep. on the Stseehs 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. Sac.. XXXIII, p. 32).
3Parker. ibid. ; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 147 ; Dorsey, Siouan Cults; XIth Rep.. P. 443. Ргагег 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.
4Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 135, 147, 387; Australian Medicine Men, J.A.I.. XVI P. 34 ; Teit, The Shuswap. p. 607.
5Meyer, Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Encounter Bay True in Woods, p. 197.
6Boas, VIth Rep. on the North-West Tribes of Canada, p. 93; Teit. The 1 "ompson Indians, p. 336; Boas, Kwakiuti, p. 394. .„.„Facts will be found in Hill Tout, Rep. of the Ethnol. of the Statlumh, J.A.I..