Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/400

364 of metempsychosis. In support of Wilken, Dr. Westermarck alleges the Bantu, whose belief Dr. Frazer regards as a late development rather than as the source of totemism. Waiving the question whether totemism had everywhere the same origin, (which perhaps may still be open to argument), it is very unsafe to base the theory of the origin of totemism in metempsychosis on the belief of the Bantu. Among the Bantu, totemism is in decay. This is shown not merely by the fact that south of the great lakes and east of the Congo basin they have generally passed into the stage of Father-Right, but also by the general tendency among those tribes to drop their proper totems and adopt in their place the totem of the political head of the tribe for the time being. The Basuto are a striking instance, and there are others. Moreover, in the Congo basin, where Mother-Right for the most part prevails, totemism is to be discovered only in faint and uncertain traces, while among the northern tribes it is by no means in full force. Lastly, the metempsychosis, where it exists, is not to be definitely connected with totemism: the dead man does not as a rule re-appear in the form of his totem-animal, but rather as a snake, or (if a chief) a lion or some other formidable beast.

So much for totemism. When we come to exogamy Dr. Westermarck does more than formulate objections: he has his own definite theory to support, that the aversion to sexual unions of near kin, "through an association of ideas, led to the prohibitions of marriage between members of the same clan on account of the notion of intimacy connected with a common descent and a common name." First, it seems, an innate aversion to sexual intercourse arose between persons living very closely together from early childhood. Then, by the law of association of ideas, it was extended to all who bore the same name and were presumed to have common descent. The only proofs offered are (1) the Roman Catholic prohibition of marriage between co-sponsors, (2) the rule prevalent among the Slavic populations of Eastern Europe "according to which the groomsman at a wedding is forbidden to intermarry with the family of the bride," (3) the laws prohibiting marriage between relatives by alliance, and (4) the Chinese Penal Code, which punishes any one who marries a person bearing his own surname. The Roman Catholic prohibition originated in a