Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/33

Rh 17. Among the North American Indians it is a system of heraldry. A pictorial roster of the heads of families forming the following of Chief Big-Road is given by Colonel Garrick Mallery, in the fourth report of the Bureau of Ethnology, in which the object which answers to the name of each individual is depicted above his head and attached to it by a line in the same manner as a crest surmounts a helmet in an achievement of arms. Little Eagle, Spotted Elk, Pretty Weasel, Prairie Chicken, are some of these. Red Cloud, a Dakota chief, made a census of his band on the same principle, which is also reproduced in that report, though in this the crests are sometimes represented without the heads belonging to them. Mad-hearted Bull, Medicine Horse, Black Bear, Red Star, are among these tokens of honour. These are the personal distinctions of a totemic character, by which the individuals and their families were known, the totems applying to larger groups being sometimes tattooed upon the bodies of persons belonging to them.

18. Another use of the totem is as architectural decoration, as may be seen by the elaborate totem-posts to be found in many of our museums. These no doubt served other purposes, but for that of mere adornment they are quite effective.

19. A third use of the system of totemism by manypeoples is in the enforcement of tabu. The animal or bird which is your totem is not to be killed or injured or eaten by you. In this point of view it may form part of an economic system for regulating the use of food, such as Dr. Roth suggests the complicated system of class-marriage in Australia was intended to be.

20. Finally, the totem is itself a method of regulating marriage, inasmuch as among some peoples you must not marry a person bearing the same totem. From all these points of view, and I daresay there are many others, I leave those who care to do so to seek for the origins of the