Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/378

 358 The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs.

guessed at its origin ; their guesses, as always, were myths, and were of every conceivable kind. The myth of descent from or kinship with the animal or plant, the Darwinian myth, does not stand alone. Every sort of myth was fashioned, was believed, and influenced conduct. Our business is to form our own guess as to the original con- nection between men and their totems, a guess which shall be consistent with human nature.

Mr. Max MOller's Theory.

Many such guesses by civilised philosophers exist. We need not dwell long on that of Mr. Max Miiller, akin, as it is, to my own early conjecture, " a totem is a clan-mark, then a clan-name, then the name of the ancestor of the clan and lastly the name of something worshipped by the clan." ^ We need not dwell on this, because the kind of "clan-mark" referred to on a pillar outside of the quarters of the clan, in a village, is peculiar to North America, and to people dwell- ing in fixed settlements. Among the nomadic Australians, we have totemism without the settlements, without the totem- pillar, without the " clan-mark " on the pillar, which, thus, cannot be the first step in totemism. Again, the " clan- name," or group-name, must be earlier than the "clan- mark," which merely expresses it, just as my name is prior to my visiting card, or as the name of an inn. The Red Lion, is prior to the sign representing that animal. Obviously we have to ask first, -whence comes the clan-name, or group- name ?

Mr. Herbert Spencer's Theory.

The conjecture of Mr. Herbert Spencer, again, need not detain us.- He supposes a man named by an animal name or nickname, like Wolf the Unwashed in the Saga, or Sitting Bull of the Sioux. Such personal names, or nicknames, are very common. The man dies, and, on the hypothesis, is

' Contributions to the Science of Mythology, i., p. 201. - Principles of Sociology (1876), i., pp. 359-368,