Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/18

 12 sparrows, swans, wrens, ravens, otters, “totem objects” in England, with Mr. Gomme. They may, or may not, have been totems, but the superstitions about most of them may have a dozen different and non-totemistic origins. Where salmon are not named by fishers, as usual in Scotland, I fancy the superstitious fear is that the fish may hear his name, and make off. The minister, also, may not be named at salmon fishing; will Mr. Gomme say that the worthy clergyman has been a totem? You may object to cut down a tree, not because your ancestors once believed in descent from it, but because it is the home of a bogie or fairy, or what not, which is unconnected with totemism. A grove may be sacred like that of Lyceian Zeus, for the same sacred reason. People have abstained from eating cows, not because they were totems, but because they were so valuable in other ways. Again, totemists are said to keep pet specimens of their totems, like the sacred mice in the temple of Sminthian Apollo, but who would argue that boys keep guinea-pigs, rabbits, toads, ravens, and so forth, as a survival of totemism? Even where the animals are sacred, totemism may have nothing to do with it. It is a question of proof in each case. The swallow is esteemed, as in the old Greek popular song, because he “brings the spring”, not because he is a totem. Ceyx and Halcyone were metamorphosed in a poetical myth, totemism has no part here. Pregnant women, “if frightened by a hare”, are said to have children with hare lips. What on earth has this to do with disrespect to the totem? A woman frightened by a black man may have a black baby for all that I know, but the black man is not a totem. Mr. Gomme includes the peacock, because the screams of a peacock are thought to forebode death. Is the peacock a native bird, or was this superstition brought from his native home? Is a death-watch a totem? If a trout catch worms, is that because a trout was once a totem, or because trout eat worms and are their natural enemies?

It will be observed that I speak as Advocatus diabola.