Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/177

 The Origin of Exogaviy and Totonisni. 1 6 1

about names, in various forms. He quotes Sir John Rhys to the effect that [)robably " the whole Aryan family, believed at one time not only that his name was a part of the man, but that it was that part of him which is termed the soul, the breath of life, or whatever you may choose to define it as being." So says Sir J. Rhys in an essay on Welsh Fairies.^ This opinion rests on philological analysis of the Aryan words for " name," and is certainly not understated.^ But, if the name is the soul of its bearer, if his soul be his essence, if he and his totem are of one essence and name, then the name and the soul, and the soul and the totem of a man are all one! There we have the rapport between man and totemic animal for which we are seeking.^**

Whether "name" in any language indicates "soul" or not, the savage belief in the intimate and wonder-working connection of names and things is a well-ascertained fact. Now, as things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, animals and sets of men having the same name are, in savage opinion, mystically connected with each other. That is now the universal totemic belief, though it need not have existed when names were first applied to distinguish things, and men, and sets of men. Examples of the belief will presently be given.

^Nineteenth Century, vol. xxx. (1891), p. 567.

'See examples in "Cupid and Psyche," in my Custom and Myth, and Mr. Clodd's I'ofu Tit Tot, pp. 91-3.

^^ In Mr. Frazer's theory the origin of this idea of rapport is the North and Central Australian belief that the essence of each human being is the spirit of a primal being of animal or vegetable form, and so totemic, which enters a woman and is reincarnated. To me it seems that this belief is a theory constructed by men who were already totemists, and already animistic, and who asked themselves, "Why have we totems? Whence have we souls?" If I am wrong, why do but two human sources of the many totem names exist ?