Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/490

Rh 470 TOTEMISM wolf are sewed into the child s shirt, or hung round its neck ; and, if several children of the family have died before, it is called Wolf. The reason assigned for some of these customs is that the witches who devour children will not attack a wolf. 1 In other words, the human child is disguised as a wolf to cheat its supernatural foes. The same desire for protection against supernatural danger may be the motive of similar totemic customs, if not of totemism in general. Marriage Marriage Ceremonies. Among the Kalang of Java, cere- whose totem is the red dog, bride and bridegroom before monies. marr i a g e are rubbed with the ashes of a red dog s bones. 2 Among the Transylvanian Gipsies, bride and bridegroom are rubbed with a weasel skin. 3 The sacred goatskin (aegis) which the priestess of Athene took to newly married women may have been used for this purpose. 4 At Rome bride and bridegroom sat down on the skin of the sheep which had been sacrificed on the occasion. 5 An Italian bride smeared the doorposts of her new home with wolf s fat. 6 It is difficult to separate from totemism the custom observed by totem clans in Bengal of marrying the bride and bridegroom to trees before they are married to each other. The bride touches with red lead (a common marriage ceremony) a mahwa tree, clasps it in her arms, and is tied to it. The bridegroom goes through a like ceremony with a mango tree. 7 Death Death Ceremonies. In death, too, the clansman seeks cere- to become one with his totem. Amongst some totem monies. c j ans j^ j g an ar ticle of faith that, as the clan sprang from the totem, so each clansman at death reassumes the totem form. Thus the Moquis, believing that the ancestors of the clans were respectively rattlesnakes, deer, bears, sand, water, tobacco, &c., think that at death each man, accord ing to his clan, is changed into a rattlesnake, a deer, &c. 8 Amongst the Black Shoulder (Buffalo) clan of the Omahas a dying clansman was wrapped in a buffalo robe with the hair out, his face was painted with the clan mark, and his friends addressed him thus : &quot; You are going to the animals (the buffaloes). You are going to rejoin your ancestors. You are going, or your four souls are going, to the four winds. Be strong.&quot; 9 Cere- Ceremonies at Puberty. The attainment of puberty is monies at celebrated by savages with ceremonies some of which seem puberty. j. Q ^ Q &amp;lt;ji rec t;iy connected with totemism. The Australian rites of initiation at puberty include the raising of these scars on the persons of the clansmen and clanswomen which serve as tribal badges or actually depict the totem. They also include those mutilations of the person by knocking out teeth, &c., which we have seen reason to suppose are meant to assimilate the man to his totem. At one stage of these Australian rites a number of men appear on the scene howling and running on all fours in imitation of the dingo or native Australian dog ; at last the leader jumps up, clasps his hands, and shouts the totem name &quot;wild dog.&quot; 1 &quot; The Coast Murring tribe in New South Wales had an initiatory cere mony at which the totem name &quot;brown snake&quot; was shouted, and a medicine-man produced a live brown snake out of his mouth. 11 As the fundamental rules of totem societies are rules regulating social intercourse, perhaps these pantomimes were intended to supply the youths with a symbolic language by means of which they might communicate with persons speaking different languages, 1 Krauss, Sitte und Branch der Siidslaven, p. 541 sq. 2 Baffles, Hist, of Java, i. 328. On rubbing with ashes as a religious ceremony, cf. Spencer, De Legibus Hebrseorum Ritualibus, vol. ii. diss. iii. lib. iii. cap. 1. 3 Original- Mittheil. aus der ethnolog. Abtheil. der kimigl. Museen Kit Berlin, i. p. 156. * Suidas, s.v. atyis. 5 Servius on Virgil, ^En., iv. 374; Festus, s.v. Innelle. 6 Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxviii. 142. 7 Dalton, Ethn. of Bengal, 194 (Mundas), 319 (Kurmis). Among the Mundas, both bride and bridegroom are sometimes married to mango trees. For Kurmi totems, see As. Quart. Rev., July 1886, p. 77. 8 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tr., iv. 86. 9 Third Re})., p. 229. 10 J. A. I., xiii. 450. &quot; Ibid., xvi. p. 43. and thus ascertain whether they belonged to clans with which marriage was allowed. The totem clans of the Bechuanas have each its special dance or pantomime, and when they wish to ascertain a stranger s clan they ask him, &quot; What do you dance ? &quot; 12 We find elsewhere that dancing has been used as a means of sexual selection. But in some cases these dances seem to be purely re ligious. At their initiatory rites the Yuin tribe in New South Wales mould figures of the totems in earth and dance before them, and a medicine-man brings up out of his inside the &quot; magic &quot; appropriate to the totem before which he stands : before the figure of the porcupine he brings up a stuff like chalk, before the kangaroo a stuff like glass, &c. 13 Again, it is at initiation that the youth is solemnly forbidden to eat of certain foods ; but, as the list of foods prohibited to youths at puberty both in Australia and America extends far beyond the simple totem, it would seem that we are here in contact with those unknown general ideas of the savage, whereof totemism is only a special product. Thus the Narrinyeri youth at initiation are forbidden to eat twenty different kinds of game, besides any food belonging to women. If they eat of these forbidden foods it is thought they will grow ugly. 14 In the Mycoolon tribe, near the Gulf of Carpentaria, the youth at initiation is forbidden to eat of eagle- hawk and its young, native companion and its young, some snakes, turtles, ant-eaters, and emu eggs. 15 The Kurnai youth is not allowed to eat the female of any animal, nor the emu, nor the porcupine. He becomes free by having the fat of the animal smeared on his face. 16 On the other hand, it is said that &quot;initiation confers many privileges on the 3 r ouths, as they are now allowed to eat many articles of food which were previously forbidden to them.&quot; 1 Thus in New South Wales before initiation a boy may eat only the females of the animals which he catches ; but after initiation (which, however, may not be complete for several years) he may eat whatever he finds. 18 In North America the Creek youths at puberty were forbidden for twelve months to eat of young bucks, turkey-cocks, fowls, pease, and salt. 19 These ceremonies seem also to be meant to admit the Admis- youth into the life of the clan, and hence of the totem, sion to The latter appears to be the meaning of a Carib ceremony, llfe of in which the father of the youth took a live bird of prey, of a particular species, and beat his son with it till the bird was dead and its head crushed, thus transferring the life and spirit of the martial bird to the future warrior. Further, he scarified his son all over, rubbed the juices of the bird into the wounds, and gave him the bird s heart to eat. 20 Amongst some Australian tribes the youth at initia tion is smeared with blood drawn from the arms either of aged men or of all the men present, and he even receives the blood to drink. Amongst some tribes on the Darling this tribal blood is his only food for two days. Among some tribes the youths at initiation sleep on the graves of their ancestors, in order to absorb their virtues. 21 It is, however, a very notable fact that the initiation of an Australian youth is said to be conducted, not by men of the same totem, but by men of that portion of the tribe into which he may marry. 22 In some of the Victorian tribes no person related to the youth by blood can interfere or assist in his initiation. 23 Whether this is true of all tribes and of all the rites at initiation does not appear. Connected with totemism is also the Australian cere- Resurrec- mony at initiation of pretending to recall a dead man to tlon - life by the utterance of his totem name. An old man lies 12 Livingstone, South Africa, p. 13 ; J. Mackenzie, Ten Years North of the Orange River, p. 391, cf. p. 135 n. ; J. A. I., xvi. 83. 13 Jour, and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1882, p. 206. 14 Nat. Tribes of S. Austral., p. 17. 15 J. A. I., xiii. p. 295. 16 Hid., xiv. p. 316. 17 Ibid., 360. 18 Jour, and Proc. R. Soc. JV. S. Wales, 1882, pp. 208. 19 Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, i. p. 185. 20 Eochefort, Hist. nat. et mor. des lies Antilles (Rotterdam, 1666), p. 556; Du Tertre, Histoire genfrale des Antilles, vol. ii. p. 377. 21 Jour, and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1882, p. 172. 22 Howitt inJ.A.L, xiii. 458. 23 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 30.