Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/384

364 animals, which the Arunta explain by their myth. Was that connection originally one of magic-working by each group, for its totem species, and, if so, why or how did the groups first select their plants and animals? Mr. Haddon's theory, presently to be criticised, may elucidate that point of departure.

As I am writing, a theory, or suggestion, by Mr. N. W. Thomas appears in Man (1902, No 85). Mr. Thomas begins with the spirit which dwells in an African fetish, and becomes the servant of its owner. The magical apparatus "may be a bag of skin containing parts of various animals. Such an animal may be the familiar of the owner, his messenger, or an evil spirit that possesses him;" similar beliefs are held about the werwolf. Now the American Indian has his "medicine-bag." "The contents are the skin, feathers, or other part of the totem animal."

Distinguo: They are parts, not of "the totem-animal," but of the chosen animal of the individual, often called his manitu. If we say "the totem-animal" we beg the question; we identify the totem with the manitu of the individual. It may be true, as Mr. Thomas says, that "the basis of individual totemism seems to be the same as that of fetishism," but I am not discussing "individual totemism," but real group-totemism. Mr. Thomas also is clear on this point, but, turning to Australia, he says that "the individual totem seems to be confined to the medicine-man." From information by Mrs. Langloh Parker, I doubt the truth of this idea. A confessedly vague reminiscence of Mr. Rusden does not help us. Speaking of an extinct tribe on the Hunter River, N.S.W., he says that he "does not recollect all their class divisions, they distinctly had the great divisions Yippai," (Ippai) "and Kombo" (Kumbo). "Apropos of the generic names," (whatever these may be), "the Geawegal had a superstition that every one had within himself an