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 totem group, before which the other totems have fled, or but dimly appear, or are vehicles of gods, or, in Africa, of ancestral spirits. (These African tribal sacred animals are called Siboko .) Some tribes explain that the Siboko originated in an animal sobrique, as ape, crocodile, given from without. Sibokoism, the presence of a sacred animal in a local tribe, can hardly be called totemism, though it is probable that the totem of the leading totem kin, among several such totem kins in a tribe, has become dominant, while the others have become obsolete. On the Gold Coast of Africa as long ago as 1819, Bowdich found twelve “families,” as he called them, of which most were called by the name of an animal, plant or other object, more or less sacred to them. They might not marry a person of the same kindred name, and there can be little doubt that totemism, with exogamy, had been the rule. But now the rules are broken down, especially in the peoples of the coast. The survivals and other information may be found in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (1906) xxxvi. 178, 188.

There are fainter traces of totemism in the Awemba between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Bangweolo. A somewhat vague account of Bantu totems in British East Africa, by Mr C. W. Hobley, indicates that among exogamous “clans” a certain animal is forbidden as food to each “clan.” The largest collection of facts about African totemism, from fresh and original sources, is to be found in Mr Frazer's book. For totemism in British Columbia the writings of Mr Hill Tout may be consulted. The Thlinkit tribes have the institution in what appears to be its earliest known form, with two exogamous phratries and female descent. Among the Salish tribes “personal” totems are much more prominent. Mr Hill Tout, with Professor F. Boas, considers the hereditary exogamous totem to have its origin in the non-exogamous personal totem, which is acquired in a variety of ways. The Salish are not exogamous, and have considerable property and marked distinctions of rank. It does not, therefore, appear probable that their system of badges or crests and personal totems is more primitive than the totemic rules of the less civilized Thlinkits, who follow the form of the south-east Australian tribes.

Other very curious examples of what we take to be aberrant and decadant totemism in New Guinea are given by Mr Seligmann (Man, 1908, No. 89), and by Dr Rivers for Fiji (Man, 1908, No. 75). Mr Seligmann (Man, 1908, No. 100) added to the information and elucidated his previous statements. The “clans” in British south-east New Guinea usually bear geographical names, but some are named after one of the totems in the “clan.” “Every individual in the clan has the same linked totems,” of which a bird, in each case, and a fish seem to be predominant and may not be eaten. “The clans are exogamous. . . and descent is in the female line.” It appears, then, that a man, having several totems, all the totems in his “clan,” must marry a woman of another “clan” who has all the totems of her “clan.”

Similar multiplicity of totems, each individual having a number of totems, is described in Western Australia (Mrs Bates). In this case the word “totem” seems to be used rather vaguely and the facts require elucidation and verification. In this part of Australia, as in Fiji “pour la naissance. . . l'apparition du totem-animal avait toujours lieu.” In Fiji the mother sees the animal, which does not affect conception, and “is merely an omen for the child already conceived.” But in Western Australia, as we have seen, the husband dreams of an animal, which is supposed to follow him home, and to be the next child borne by his wife. If it is correctly stated that when the husband has dreamed of no animal, while nevertheless his wife has a baby, the husband spears the man whom he suspects of having dreamed of an animal, the marital jealousy

takes an unusual form and human life becomes precarious. But probably the husband has some reason for the direction of his suspicions. He never suspects a woman.

“The Banks' Islanders,” says Mr Frazer, “have retained the primitive system of conceptional totemism.” On the other hand Dr Rivers, who is here our authority, writes “totemism is absent” from “the northern New Hebrides, the Banks' and the Terres groups.” In a place where totemism is absent it does not prima facie seem likely that we shall discover “the primitive system of conceptional totemism.” The Banks' Islanders have no totemism at all. But they have a certain superstition applying to certain cases, and that superstition resembles Arunta and Loritja beliefs, in which Mr Frazer finds the germs of totemism. The superstition, however, has not produced any kind of totemism in the Banks' group of isles, at least, no totemism is found. “There are,” writes Dr Rivers, “beliefs which would seem to furnish the most natural starting-point for totemism, beliefs which Dr Frazer has been led by the Australian evidence” (by part of the Australian evidence, we must say) “to regard as the origin of the institution.” Thus, in Banks' Islands we have the starting-point of the institution, without the institution itself, and in many Australian tribes we have the institution—without the facts which are “the most natural starting-point.” As far as they go these circumstances look as if “the most natural” were not the actual starting-point. The facts are these: in the Isle of Mota, Banks' group, “many individuals” are under a tabu not to eat, in each case, a certain animal or fruit, or to touch certain trees, because, in each case, “the person is believed to be the animal or fruit in question.”

This tabu does not, as in totemism, apply to every individual; but only to those whose mothers, before the birth of the individuals, “find an animal or fruit in their loin-cloths.” This, at least, “is usually” the case. No other cases are given. The women, in each case, are informed that their child “will have the qualities of the animal” (or fruit) “or even, it appeared would be himself or herself the animal” (or fruit). A coco-nut or a crocodile, a flying fox or a brush turkey, could not get inside a loin-cloth; the animal and fruits must be of exiguous dimensions. When the animal (or fruit) disappears “it is believed that it is because the animal has at the time of its disappearance entered into the woman. It seemed quite clear that there was no belief in physical impregnation on the part of the animal nor of the entry of a material object in the form of the animal. ., but, so far as I could gather, an animal found in this way was regarded as more or less supernatural, a spirit animal and not one material, from the beginning.”

“There was no ignorance of the physical rôle of the human father, and the father played the same part in conception as in cases unaccompanied by an animal appearance.” The part played by the animal or fruit is limited to producing a tabu against the child eating it, in each case, and some community of nature with the animal or fruit. Nothing here is hereditary. The superstition resembles some of those of the Arunta, Loritja and Euahlayi. Among the Euahlayi the superstition has no influence; normal totemism prevails; among the Arunta nation it is considered to be, and Dr Rivers seems to think that it is, likely to have been the origin of totemism. In Mota, however, it either did not produce totemism, or it did; and, where the germ has survived in certain cases, the institution has disappeared—while the germinal facts have vanished in the great majority of totemic societies. Dr Rivers does not explain how a brush turkey, a sea snake or a flying fox can get into a woman's loin-cloth, yet these animals, also crabs, are among those tabued in this way. Perhaps they have struck the woman's fancy without getting into her loin-cloth.

It is scarcely correct to say that “the Banks' Islanders have retained the primitive system of conceptional totemism.” They only present, in certain instances, features like those which are supposed to be the germs of a system of conceptional