Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/349

 Reviews. 321

class exogamic system among the Gonds. In one part of Bastar these classes have no names; but in spite of this they appear perfectly well known to the people. Elsewhere the classes are distinguished by the number of gods worshipped : one class worship six, and the other seven. In either case a man was obliged to take his wife from the other class. Formerly, however, in some places at least, the Gonds seem to have been divided into seven exogamic groups, each worshipping a different number of gods, from one to seven. The gods are a miscellaneous assortment. Formerly, we are told, " the original gods were, with the exception of Ghangra, hunting- weapons and representations of animals," by which, I presume, are meant the idols, or outward and visible forms of the gods. How far these were identified with the gods themselves does not seem clear. Ghangra is of bell-metal and in the form of a bell, such as is put round the neck of a bullock. The gods, or idols, are in fact of various forms : Chawar is a cow's tail (also used as a whisk) ; Palo, a piece of cloth used to cover spear-heads ; Holera is represented by a bullock's bell of wood. The village gods con- sist as usual of stones or mud platforms under the shade of some appropriate tree, and so on.

Many of the tribes and of the castes (the castes are often trans- formed tribes or portions of tribes of non-Aryan descent received into the Hindu system) are divided into groups distinguished by the names of animals or other objects of nature. Mr. Russell is inclined to see in all these totemism, or its remains. In some cases his opinion is supported not merely by the groups being exogamic, but by the reverential observances they pay to the objects after which they are named. In other cases both exogamy and reverence are wanting. Further enquiry is needed on this subject. The author is strongly convinced of the correctness of Dr. Haddon's theory of totemism, to which he returns more than once, saying that " the relationship of the totem could only have arisen from the fact that they ate it."

He adheres to " Dr. Westermarck's view, that the origin of exogamy lay in the aversion on the part of individuals to union with others with whom they lived " — an opinion by no means proved. A number of examples are scattered up and down the volumes of the formation of new exogamous groups by fission —