Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/382

 362 The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs.

to piece it together from scattered hints and fragments, and from the recollections of it which linger in fairy tales."

On reflection, we cannot but see the flaw in this reason- ing. No savage has revealed to European inquirers that his totem is his " soul-box." But every other savage knoivs his fatal secret. Every savage, well aware (by the hypo- thesis) that his own totem is the hiding-place of his soul, knows that the totems of his enemies are the hiding-places of their souls. He wants to kill his enemies, and he has an easy mode of doing so, merely to shoot down every specimen of their totems. His enemies will then die, when he is lucky enough to destroy their " soul- boxes." Now I am not aware, in the destructive magic of savages, of a single case in which a totem is slain, or tortured, for the purpose of slaying or torturing a man of that totem All other sorts of sympathetic magic are practised, but where is the evidence for that sort, which ought to be of considerable diffusion ? ^ The supposed " secret " of savage life is no secret to other savages. Each tells any inquirer what his " clay " or totem is. He blazons his totem proudly. The nearest approach to invidious action against a totem, with which I am acquainted, is the killing by the Kurnai women, of the men's " sex-totem," when the young men are backward wooers. The purpose is to produce a fight between lads and lasses, a rude form of flirtation, after which engagements or elopements are apt to follow.-

Mr. Frazer tentatively suggests another, a rival or a sub- sidiary solution of the problem Among the Arunta and other tribes, " the totemic system has a much wider scope, its aim being to provide the community with a supply of food and all other necessaries by means of certain magical ceremonies, the performance of which is distributed among

' I am haunted by the impression that I have met examples, but where, I know not.

- \\o\\\\.'i, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xviii., p. 58.