Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/495

Rh TOTEMISM 475 As the subphratries of this tribe are said to be equivalent to the subphratries of the Kamilaroi, it seems to follow that the subphratries of the Kamilaroi (Muri, Kubi, Ipai, and Kumbo) have or once had totems also. Hence it ap pears that in tribes organized in phratries, subphratries, and clans each man has three totems his phratry totem, his subphratry totem, and his clan totem. If we add a sex totem and an individual totem, each man in the typical Australian tribe has five distinct kinds of totems. What degree of allegiance he owes to his subphratry totem and phratry totem respectively we are not told ; indeed, the very existence of such totems, as distinct from clan totems, appears to have been generally overlooked. But we may suppose that the totem bond diminishes in strength in proportion to its extension; that therefore the clan totem is the primary tie, of which the subphratry and phratry totems are successively weakened repetitions. In these totems superposed on totems may perhaps be discerned a rudimentary classification of natural objects under heads which bear a certain resemblance to genera, species, &c. This classification is by some Australian tribes extended so as to include the whole of nature. Thus the Port Mackay tribe in Queensland (see above) divides all nature between the phratries ; the wind belongs to one phratry and the rain to another ; the sun is Wutaru and the moon is Yungaru ; the stars, trees, and plants are also divided between the phratries. 1 As the totem of Wutaru is kangaroo and of Yungaru alligator, this is equivalent to making the sun a kangaroo and the moon an alligator. The Mount Gambier tribe in South Australia is divided into two phratries (Kumi and Kroki), which again are subdivided into totem clans. Everything in nature belongs to a totem clan, thus : 2 Phratries. Totem Clans. Including Kumi. J Kroki. I 1. JIula= Fish-Hawk. 2. Parangal= Pelican. 3. Wa = Crow. 4. WIla= Black Cockatoo. 5. Karato=A harmless Snake. 1. Werio= Tea-Tree. 2. Murna=An edible Root. 3. Kara al = Black crest less Cock atoo. Smoke, honeysuckle, trees, &amp;lt;fcc. /Dogs, blackwood trees, fire, frost 1 (fern.) / Rain, thunder, lightning, winter, hail, clouds, &c. Stars, moon, &amp;lt;fec. /Fish, stringy-bark trees, seals, eels, &amp;lt;fcc. Ducks, wallabies, owls, cray-flsh, &c. {Bustards, quails, dolvich (a small kangaroo). Kangaroo, she-oak trees, summer, sun, autumn (fern.), wind (fern.). With reference to this classification Mr D. S. Stewart, the authority for it, says, &quot; I have tried in vain to find some reason for the arrangement. I asked, To what division does a bullock belong ? After a pause came the answer, It eats grass : it is Boortwerio. I then said, A cray-fish does not eat grass; why is it Boortwerio ? Then came the standing reason for all puzzling questions : That is what our fathers said it was. &quot; 3 The natural objects thus classed under and sharing the respect due to the totem may be conveniently called, as Mr Howitt proposes, 4 subtotems. Again, the &quot;Wotjoballuk tribe in north-western Victoria has a system of subtotems, thus : B Phratries. Totem Clans. Subtotems. Krokitch. -j Gamutch. &amp;lt; 1. Hot Wind. 2. White crestless Cockatoo. 3. Belonging to the Sun. 4. Deaf Adder. 5. Black Cockatoo. 6. Pelican. Each totem has subordinate to it a number of objects, animal or vegetable, e.g., kangaroo, red gum-tree, &amp;lt;fec. Do. Of the subtotems in this tribe Mr Howitt says, &quot; They appear to me to be totems in a state of development. Hot wind has at least five of them, white cockatoo has seventeen, and so on for the others. That these subtotems are now in process of gaining a sort of inde pendence may be shown by the following instance : a man who is Krokitch-Wartwut (hot wind) claimed to own all the five subtotems of hot wind (three snakes and two birds), yet of these there was one which he specially claimed as belonging to him, namely, Moiwuk (carpet-snake). Thus his totem, hot wind, seems to have been in process of subdivision into minor totems, and this man s 1 Brough Smyth, i. 91; Fison and Howitt, 168; cf. J. A. I., xiii. 300. 2 Fison and Howitt, loc. cit. 8 Fison and Howitt, 169. 4 In Smithson. Rep. for 1883, p. 818. 5 Ibid. division might have become hot wind carpet-snake had not civilization rudely stopped the process by almost extinguishing the tribe.&quot; Geographical Diffusion of Totemism. In Australia Diffusion totemism is almost universal. 6 In North America it may of totem- be roughly said to prevail, or have prevailed, among all the mn * tribes east of the Rocky Mountains, 7 and among all the Indian (but not the Eskimo) tribes on the north-west coast as far south as the United States frontier. On the other hand, highly competent authorities have failed to find it among the tribes of western Washington, north-western Oregon, and California. 8 In Panama it exists apparently among the Guaymies : each tribe, family, and individual has a guardian animal, the most prevalent being a kind of parrot. 9 In South America totemism is found among the Goajiros on the borders of Colombia and Venezuela, 10 the Arawaks in Guiana, 11 the Bosch negroes also in Guiana, 12 and the Patagonians. 13 Finding it at such distant points of the continent, we should expect it to be widely prevalent ; but, with our meagre knowledge of the South American Indians, this is merely conjecture. The aborigines of Peru and the Salivas on the Orinoco believed in the descent of their tribes from animals, plants, and natural objects, such as the sun and earth ; u but this, though a presumption, is not a proof of totemism. In Africa totemism prevails in Senegambia, among the Bakalai on the equator, on the Gold Coast and in Ashantee, and among the Damaras and Bechuanas in southern Africa. 15 There are traces of totemism elsewhere in Africa. In east ern Africa the Gallas are divided into two exogamous sec tions, and have certain forbidden foods. 16 In Abyssinia certain districts or families will not eat of certain animals or parts of animals. 17 The territory of the Hovas in Mada gascar is divided and subdivided into districts, the names of the subdivisions referring &quot; rather to clans and divi sions of people than to place.&quot; One of these names is &quot; the powerful bird,&quot; i.e., either the eagle or the vulture. The same clan is found occupying separate districts. 18 One Madagascar tribe regard a species of lemur as &quot; an embodi ment of the spirit of their ancestors, and therefore they look with horror upon killing them.&quot; Other Malagasy tribes and families refrain from eating pigs and goats; others will not eat certain vegetables nor even allow them to be carried into their houses. 19 The only occasion when the Sakalava tribe in Madagascar kill a bull is at the cir cumcision of a child, who is placed on the bull s back during the customary invocation. 20 In Bengal, as we have seen, there are numerous totem tribes among the non-Aryan races. In Siberia the Yakuts 6 Perhaps the only known exceptions are the Kurnai in eastern and the Gournditch-mora in western Victoria. For the latter see Fison and Howitt, p. 275. 7 Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, 153 ; H. Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, p. 51. 8 George Gibbs in Contrib. to N. American Ethnol., i. 184; S. Powers, Tribes of Calif., 5. 9 A. Pinart in Revue d Ethnographic, vi. p. 36. 10 Simons in Proc. R. Geog. Soc., Dec. 1885, pp. 786, 796. 11 Brett, Ind. Tribes of Guiana, 98 ; Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, 175 sq. 12 Crevaux, Voyages dans VAmZrique du Sud, p. 59. 13 Falkner, Descr. of Patagonia, 114. 14 Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, pt. i. bk. i. chs. 9, 10, 11, 18 ; Gumilla, Hist, de VOrenoque, i. 175 sq. 13 Revue d Ethnologic, iii. 396 sq., v. 81; A. B. Ellis, The Tshi- speaking People of the Gold Coast, p. 204 sq. ; Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, ed. 1873, p. 216; Du Chaillu, Equal. Afr., 308 sq., Id., Journey to AsJiango Land, 427, 429 ; 0. J. Anderson, Lake Ngami, 221 sq. ; Livingstone, Travels in S. Africa, 13 ; Casalis, The Basutos, 211 ; J. Mackenzie, Ten Years North of the Orange River, 393 ; J. A. I., xvi. 83 sq. 16 Charles New, Life, Wanderings, &c., in Eastern Africa, 272, 274. 17 Mansfield Parkyns, Life in Abyssinia, 293 ; Tr. Ethnol. Soc., new series, vi. 292. 18 Ellis, Hist, of Madagascar, i. 87. 19 Folk-Lore Record, ii. 22, 30. w Ibid., iv. 45.