Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/429

* TOTEMISM. 371 TOTERO. in one clan refusing to eat one group of animals; while the American Indian, who takes as his private totem the animal seen in a dream the night before he is initiated into the tribe, may often have converted his own totem into that of his tribe. Honorific totems are merely assumed for politeness, so to speak. They are at least always of secondary origin. Color totems and odds and ends as totems are little more than fetishes and may bo explained accordingly. Sex totems are not true totems at all, but deserve a specific name. Certainly in such cases there is neither blood-kinship nor any trait of real totem- ism. Nor is it a proof of totemism when a race holds the belief that its ancestors were divine and includes among its many ancestral gods divine animals, any more than it is totemic to derive a race from a tree. The Algonquin In- dians, for example, like the ancient Scandina- vians, hold that all men are descended from an ash-tree; yet this tree is not their totem. It must be remembered also that when an institu- tion is once established it moves forward of it- self. Henee there may be clans which take to themselves totems unsuitable as food merely be- cause other clans in their environment have totems, which are no longer interpreted as pro- viders of food, but only as tutelar}' objects. In some cases totems may be assumed as coats of arms are assumed, simply to be in the fashion. Tlius a tribe in Bengal a few years ago assumed as a tutelary divinity the dog. and the dog is to-day practically their totem. The reason why they chose any such divinity was simph^ that all their neighbors had totems and they wished to be fashionable, while the reason they selected the dog was that 'it was useless when dead' (i.e. it could not be eaten, and so might as well serve as a totem). Then, too, there are cases where what seems to be a genuine totem shows itself on in- spection not to be of the same class with cases of genuine totemism. Thus an African selects lie- fore death the animal he will become after death, and this (species) then becomes sacred to his descendants. Frazer divides totemism into what he calls the Egyptian kind and the Aino kind. Among the ancient Egyptians it was the cus- tom, as it is to-day the custom among the Todas of India, to slay certain animals only as a sacrament ; while among the Caucasian tribes and the Ainos of Japan it is customary to kill as a sacrament certain animals which are also killed regularly. But these two kinds are only stages of totemism. The sacramental slaving of an animal regularly killed is an expiation, based upon the same principle as that which induces a savage to apologize to a bear before killing it, but all sacrifice of totems is non-primitive. The theory has recently been advanced that to- temism was at first a kind of writing, indicating a clan ; that those men called e.g. Beavers came to believe they were Tjcaver sons;' and that wor- ship of the beaver totem ai'ose from this belief. In the most primitive totemism, however, the only support given to this version is that the totem is tattooed on the body of a clansman, which, obviously, might be due to a prior re- spect for the totem. In conclusion, certain aspects of totemism may be mentioned because they have been more or less utilized in creating doubtful history. Thus totem-poles have been cited as originating all idol-worship, and the practices of decorative mu- tilation and tattooing have been referred to totemism though they are found where no totem- ism exists. More important is the fact that the sacrifice of the totem, whether piacular or not, appears to be of secondary origin; for this <loes away with the further claim that ceremonies in relation to the birth and death of vegetation (such as the spring and harvest festivals of In- dia, Babylonia, Germany, etc.) are l)orrowed from totemism, a contention no longer upheld by the best authorities. A further misunderstantl- ing on the part of some writers is due to a con- fusion in regard to the relation between taboo and totemism. These in themselves have noth- ing to do with each other. On the contrary, they are often found in inverse proportion. Thus in Polynesia there is no totemism except in Samoa, while taboo (q.v.) is the chief religious factor in all Polynesia. In a word, totemism often en- tails taboo, but taboo does not imply totemism. Totemism is far from universal. It is found among the American Indians, the Australians, certain Africans, the Egyptians, etc., but not only are there tribes even in America which have no totemism, but there are whole races, such as the Eskimo, which show no trace of it, and others, such as the Chinese, which have scarcely any totemism. The races most discussed in this regard are the Semites and Aryans. In proof of the Aryans having been totemists the reverence paid by the Greeks to fishes and storks, the existence of a wolf clan, and the 'murder' of an ox have been cited. The 'wolf and 'bear,' Greek tribal names, have also been regarded as a proof of totemism. But here, as among the Semites, the connecting links which should prove the existence of the totemic insti- tution are always found to be wanting. Rever- ence paid to animals is no proof of totemism, and still less proof is furnished by men having animal or vegetable names. The only evidence for the existence of early Vedic totemism is found in such names. The only ancestor man is called Cucumber, and at once the inference is drawn that we have to do with the Cucumber clan of totemists. But in New Zealand, where totemism is unknown, a chief was also called Cucumber, and the reason is expressly "because he crept so rapidly and so stealthily" (around his enemies). The vital point in all such cases is whether families of men are regarded as re- lated to families of vegetables or animals. Among the Aryan Hindus, the Teutons, and the Romans, or even among the Greeks, there is not the slight- est proof of any such belief. It has been shown, indeed, that the Semites believed in kinship be- tween men and gods, and the proof of a belief in kinship between gods and animals has been thought possible; but in respect of the most im- portant third proof, kinship between groups of men and groups of beasts, no satisfactory evi- dence has been offered. Consult : Tylor, Early History of Mankind (London, 1870) ; Lubbock, Origin of Cirilization (ib., 1S84) ; Robertson Smith. Kinship and Mar- riage (ib., 1885) ; Frazer, Totemiam (Edinburgh, 1887) ; id.. The Golden Bough ('2d ed., London, 1900). TOTE'EO. A North American Indian tribe. See TuTELO.