Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/406

 3S6 The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs.

Ashley Monkeys

Yarby Geese

Watworth Bulldogs

Brailing Peesweeps

Wickley Tigers

Fenton Rooks

Linton Men

Oakditch Potato-grubs

St. Aldate's Fools

At Loughton, when the Hillborough boys pass through on a holiday excursion, the Loughton boys hang out dead mice, the Hillborough badge, in derision. The boys have even their " personal totems," and a lad who wishes for a com- panion in nocturnal adventure will utter the cry of his peculiar beast or bird, and a friend will answer with his. If boys remained always boys (that is, savages), and if civilisation were consequently wiped out, myths about these group-names of villages would be developed, and totemism would flourish again. Later I give other instances of village names answeringtototem-names, and in an Appendix (p. 391), I give analogous cases collected by Miss Burne in Shropshire, while others, we saw, are to be found in the blason popu- laire of France.

It appears to me that group-names may, originally, have been imposed from without, just as the Eskimo are really Inuits, Eskimo being the derisive name conferred by their Indian neighbours. Of course I do not mean that the group- names would always, or perhaps often^ have been, in origin, derisive nicknames. Many reasons, as has been said, might prompt the name-giving. But each such group would, I suggest, evolve animal and vegetable nicknames for each neighbouring group. Finally some names would " stick," would be stereotyped, and each group would come to answer to its nickname, just as "Pussy Moncrieff," or "Bulldog Irving," or "Piggy Frazer," or " Cow Maitland," does at school.