Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/77

Rh that they are believed to be the same persons as those now living, but in a previous incarnation. There is thus no tracing back to a single ancestor, and no possibility of what I have called a manitou-totem. Moreover, these bands are expressly believed to have originated from the animals and plants after which they are called. "In the Alcheringa," we are told, "lived ancestors who, in the native mind, are so intimately associated wath the animals or plants the name of which they bear that an Alcheringa man of, say, the kangaroototem may sometimes be spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or as a kangaroo-man. The identity of the human individual is often sunk in that of the animal or plant from which he is supposed to have originated." Here we are taken back to Dr. Frazer's generalisation whence we started. The mental confusion referred to is common to savages; it perpetually recurs in savage tales, not less among the Kwakiutl than among the Arunta. We may reasonably suspect that Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's volume does not contain all the folklore of the Arunta. If not, we may be sure there are other tales betraying the same confusion.

So far, therefore, as the Arunta are concerned, and putting out of sight the qualification implied in the belief that the descendants to-day are themselves the ancestors in a new incarnation. Dr. Frazer's generalisation is not contravened, while it would seem as though there is less deviation from it among the tribes of British Columbia than might be inferred from Dr. Boas' account. Returning to them at this point, it must not be forgotten that the organisation, the ceremonies, and the tales of the peoples of the