More about Totems
The origin of totemism is unknown to me, as to Mr. McLennan and Dr. Robertson Smith, but Mr. Max Müller knows this origin. ‘A totem is a clan-mark, then a clan-name, then the name of the ancestor of a clan, and lastly the name of something worshipped by a clan’ (i. 201). ‘All this applies in the first instance to Red Indians only.’ Yes, and ‘clan’ applies in the first instance to the Scottish clans only! When Mr. Max Müller speaks of ‘clans’ among the Red Indians, he uses a word whose connotation differs from anything known to exist in America. But the analogy between a Scottish clan and an American totem-kin is close enough to justify Mr. Max Müller in speaking of Red Indian ‘clans.’ By parity of reasoning, the analogy between the Australian Kobong and the American totem is so complete that we may speak of ‘Totemism’ in Australia. It would be childish to talk of ‘Totemism’ in North America, ‘Kobongism’ in Australia, ‘Pacarissaism’ in the realm of the Incas: totems, kobongs, and pacarissas all amounting to the same thing, except in one point. I am not aware that Australian blacks erect, or that the subjects of the Incas, or that African and Indian and Asiatic totemists, erected ‘sign-boards’ anywhere, as the Ottawa writer assures us that the Ottawas do, or used to do. And, if they don’t, how do we know that kobongs and pacarissas were developed out of sign-boards?