Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/322

 2,00 The Veneratio7t of the Cow in India.

We have seen that the dogma of metempsychosis offers no adequate explanation of the growth of this sentiment in its present exaggerated form. The same may be said of totemism. Dr. Frazer has now come to the conckision that "the prohibitions to eat the flesh of horned cattle and deer seem to be too general to be totemic ; since a characteristic feature of true totemism is that its taboos are observed not by whole tribes or com- munities but only by particular stocks or families which compose the tribe or community." ^^^ Further, he admits that the attempt to find totemism among the so-called Aryan races is unsuccessful."^ In the almost exhaustive lists of totems in India, which his industry and research have accumulated, it is remarkable how infre- quently the cow or buffalo appears."' Domestic animals are rarely selected as totems, and the absence of cow or buffalo totems in India indicates that this institution can have exercised little influence on the present problem.

More is to be said in favour of the commonly accepted theory, which has the support of Mr. Hopkins,"^ that the movement for the protection of kine was based upon economical considerations, the ox being essential to agri- culture, the chief industry of the Hindus. It cannot be denied that this may have had some effect, and this feeling doubtless largely accounts for the respect paid to the animal in the pastoral stage of culture ; and at present all Hindus accept this as the explanation of their devotion to the animal. But it may be urged that, while this feeling may in some measure account for the respect paid to the animal, it cannot account for the existing fanatical rever- ence. Experience of the Hindu and other backward races shows that economical or hygienic considerations exercise

^"5 Tote mis III and Exogamy, vol. ii., p. 204.

^^^IbU., vol. iv., pp. 12 et seq. ^'>' Ibid., vol. ii., pp. 218 et seij.

1"^ Oj>. cit., p. 200.