Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/395

 The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs, 375

not convinced that, so early, the relations between groups would admit of frequent barter ; nor, as has been said, am I certain that many groups could have a very special article of food in an age prior to cultivation. But, granting all that to Mr. Haddon, no more command of language is needed by my theory than by his. Each conjecture postu- lates the existence of names of plants and animals, and the transference of the names to human groups. If gesture- language was prior to spoken language, in each case gesture- names could be employed, as in North America, totem names are to this day expressed in gesture-language. In my own opinion, man was as human as he is to-day, when totem-names arose, and as articulate. But if he was not, gesture-language would suffice.

I shall illustrate my theory from folklore practice. We might do the same for Mr. Haddon's. We talk of " the Muffin-man,'' the man who sells muffins. A Volkslied

says :

" She fell in love with the cat's meat man, The man who sells the meat ! "

We call one person " The English Opium Eater," another " The Oyster Eater," another "The Irish Whiskey Drinker." Here are nicknames derived from dealing in, or special consumption of, articles of food.

Many others occur in my folklore and savage lists of group-names. They all imply at least as much command of language, as the names, ultimately totem-names, given for various reasons in my theory. Thus Mr. Haddon and myself do not seem to me to differ on this point : his theory goes no farther back in culture than mine does : nay, he assumes that barter was a regular institution, which implies a state of peace, almost a state of co-operation.

Statement of the Problem.

Let us concentrate, now^ our attention on the character of the genuine totem, the totem of the group or kin. It is