Aryan Totems (?)
Generally speaking (and how delightfully characteristic of us all is this!), I see totems in Greek sacred beasts, where Mr. Frazer sees the corn-spirit embodied in a beast, and where Mr. Max Müller sees (in the case of Indra, called the bull) ‘words meaning simply male, manly, strong,’ an ‘animal simile.’ [{85a}] Here, of course, Mr. Max Müller is wholly in the right, when a Vedic poet calls Indra ‘strong bull,’ or the like. Such poetic epithets do not afford the shadow of a presumption for Vedic totemism, even as a survival. Mr. Frazer agrees with me and Mr. Max Müller in this certainty. I myself say, ‘If in the shape of Indra there be traces of fur and feather, they are not very numerous nor very distinct, but we give them for what they may be worth.’ I then give them. [{85b}] To prove that I do not force the evidence, I take the Vedic text. [{85c}] ‘His mother, a cow, bore Indra, an unlicked calf.’ I then give Sayana’s explanation. Indra entered into the body of Dakshina, and was reborn of her. She also bore a cow. But this legend, I say, ‘has rather the air of being an invention, après coup, to account for the Vedic text of calf Indra, born from a cow, than of being a genuine ancient myth.’ The Vedic myth of Indra’s amours in shape of a ram, I say ‘will doubtless be explained away as metaphorical.’ Nay, I will go further. It is perfectly conceivable to me that in certain cases a poetic epithet applied by a poet to a god (say bull, ram, or snake) might be misconceived, and might give rise to the worship of a god as a bull, or snake, or ram. Further, if civilised ideas perished, and if a race retained a bull-god, born of their degradation and confusion of mind, they might eat him in a ritual sacrifice. But that all totemistic races are totemistic, because they all first metaphorically applied animal names to gods, and then forgot what they had meant, and worshipped these animals, sans phrase, appears to me to be, if not incredible, still greatly in want of evidence.