Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/373

 The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs. 353

when his servant brought in a lizard which he had killed. On this one of the natives exhibited great distress, saying, " Why have you killed my father : we were talking of my father, and he came to us." The son (his name was Jericha) then wrapped the dead lizard up in leaves, and reverently laid the body in the bush. This was not a case like that of the Zulu Idhlozi, the serpents that haunt houses, and are believed to be the vehicles of the souls of dead kinsfolk. The other natives present had for their " father," one a mouse, another a pigeon, and so on. If any one ate his animal, " father," sores broke out on him, and Mr. Atkinson was shown a woman thus afflicted for having eaten her " father." But I do not find in his papers, that a man with a mouse for father might not marry a woman of the mouse set, nor have I elsewhere been able to ascertain what is New Caledonian practice on this point.^ When Mr. Atkinson made these observations (1874) he had only heard of totems in the novels of Cooper and other romancers.

Tendency to find Totemism where it does not

EXIST.

This example is here cited because, as far as I am aware, no other anthropologist has observed this amount of totemism in New Caledonia. Students are divided into those who have a bias in favour of finding totemism everywhere, and those who aver, with unconcealed delight, that in this or the other place there are no totems. Such negative state- ments must always be received with caution. An European may live long among savages before he really knows them,

' The Marquis d'Eguilles kindly sends me extracts from an official " Notice sur la Nouvelle Caledonie," drawn up for the Paris Exhibition of 1900. The author says that the names of relationships are expressed by the Kanaka "in a touching manner." One name includes our "Uncle" and "Father," another our "Mother " and "Aunts " ; another name includes our " Brothers,' " Sisters," and " Cousins." This, of course, is " the classificatory system." About animal "fathers " nothing is said. VOL XIII. 2 A