Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/388

 368 The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs.

whose knowledge of the inner mind of that people is no less remarkable than her scientific caution.^ The conclusion of Miss Fletcher's valuable essay shows at a glance, that her hypothesis contains the same fundamental error as that of Dr. Wilken : namely, the totem of the kin is derived from the manitu, or personal friendly object of an individual, a male ancestor. This cannot, we repeat, hold good for that early stage of society which reckons descent in the female line, and in w^hich male ancestors do not found houses, clans, names, or totem-kins.

The Omaha men, at puberty, after prayer and fasting, choose nianitus suggested in dreams or visions. Miss Fletcher writes, " As totems could be obtained but in one way — through the rite of the vision — the totem of a gens must have come into existence in that manner, and must have represented the manifestation of an ancestor's vision, that of a man whose ability and opportunity served to make him the founder of a family, of a group of kindred who dwelt together, fought together, and learned the value of united strength." ^

It is needless to remark that this explanation cannot explain the origin of totemism among tribes where descent is reckoned in the female line, and where no man becomes " the founder of a family." The Omaha, a house-dwelling, agricultural tribe, with descent in the male line, with priests, and departmental gods, a tribe, too, among whom the manitu is not hereditable, can give us no line as to the origin of totemism. Miss Fletcher's theory demands the hereditable character of the individual manitu, and yet it is never inherited.

Mr. Hill-Tout's Theory.

Mr. Hill-Tout has evolved a theory out of the customs of the aborigines of British Columbia, among whom "the clan

' The Import of the Totem. By Alice C. Fletcher. (Salem Press, Mass., 1S97.) - Op. cit., p. 12.