Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/405

 The Origin of Totem Names atid Beliefs. 385

as articles of food, and also by nicknames — often derisive. What I present is, not proof that the early groups named each other after plants and animals, but proof that among our rustics, by congruity of fancy, such names are given, with other names exactly analogous to those now used among settled savages, moving away from totemism.

Illustration from Folklore.

I select illustrative examples from the blason popidaire of modern folklore. Here we find the use of plant and animal names for neighbouring groups, villages, or parishes. Thus two informants in a rural district of Cornwall, living at a village which I shall call Loughton, found that, when they walked through the neighbouring village, Hillborough, the little boys " called cuckoo at the sight of us." They learned that the cuckoo was the badge, in folklore, of their villagre. An ancient carved and o-ilded dove in the Loughton church " was firmly believed by many of the inhabitants to be a representation of the Loughton cuckoo," and all Loughton folk were cuckoos. " It seems as if the inhabit- ants do not care to talk about these things, for some reason or other." A travelled Loughtonian " believes the animal names and symbols to be very ancient, and that each village has its symbol." My informants think that " some modern badges," such as tiger and monkey, " have been substituted for more ancient ones," There is apparently no veneration of the local beast, bird, or insect, which seems often, on the other hand, to have been imposed from without as a token of derision. Australians make a great totem of the witchetty grub (as Spencer and Gillen report), but the village of Oak- ditch is not proud of its potato-grub, the natives themselves being styled " tater-grubs." I append a list of villages (with false names) and of their badges :

Hillborough Mice

Loughton Cuckoos

Miltown Mules (it used to be rats)

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