We now come to a theory which exists in many shapes, but in all is vitiated, I think, by the same error of reasoning. Mr. Tylor, however, has lent at least a modified approval to the hypothesis as mooted by the late Dutch anthropologist, Dr. Wilken, of Leyden. Mr. Tylor writes, 'if it does not completely solve the totem problem, at any rate it seems to mark out its main lines.' Unluckily the hypothesis of Dr. Wilken is perhaps the least probable of all. The materials are found, not in a race so comparatively early as the Australians or Adamanese, but among the settled peoples of Malay, Sumatra, and Melanesia. By them, in their Tables of Precedence, 'the Crocodile is regarded as equal in rank to the Dutch Resident.' Crocodiles are looked on as near kinsmen of men, who, when they die, expect to become crocodiles. To kill crocodiles is murder. 'So it is with tigers, whom the Sumatrans worship and call ancestors.'
Mr. Tylor observes, 'Wilken sees in this transmigration of souls the link which connects Totemism with ancestor-worship,' and thinks that Dr. Codrington's remarks on Melanesian ways add weight to this opinion. In Melanesia, as Dr. Codrington reports, an influential man, before his death, will lay a ban, or tabu, on something, say a banana, or a pig. He says that he 'will be in' a shark, a banana, a bird, a butterfly, or what not. Dr. Codrington's informant, Mr. Sleigh of Lifu, says 'that creature would be sacred to his family,' they would call it 'papa,' and 'offer it a young cocoa-nut.' 'But they did not adopt thus the name of a tribe.' The children of papa, who chose to be a butterfly (like Mr. Thomas Haynes Bailey) do not call themselves 'The Butterflies,' nor does the butterfly name mark their exogamous limit. Mr. Tylor concludes, 'an ancestor, having lineal descendants among men and sharks, or men and owls, is thus the founder of a totem family, which mere increase may convert into a totem clan, already provided with its animal name.' This conclusion is tentative, and put forth with Mr. Tylor's usual caution. But, as a matter of fact, no totem kin is actually founded thus, for example, in Melanesia. The institutions of that region, as we are to show, really illustrate the way out of, not the way into, Totemism. Moreover the theory, as expressed by Mr. Tylor in the words cited, must be deemed unfortunate because it takes for granted that 'the Patriarchal theory' of the origin of the so-called 'clan,' or totem group, is correct. A male ancestor founds a family, which swells, 'by natural increase,' into a 'clan.' The ancestor is worshipped under the name of Butterfly, his descendants, the clan founded by him, are named Butterflies. But all this can only happen where male ancestors are remembered, and are worshipped, where descent is reckoned in the male line, and where, as among ourselves, a remembered male ancestor founds a House, as Tam o' the Cowgate founded the House of Haddington. In short Dr. Wilken has slipped back into the Patriarchal theory. Now, among totemists like the Australians, ancestors are not remembered, their names are tabued, they are not worshipped, they do not found families, where descent is reckoned in the female line.[30]
MISS ALICE FLETCHER'S THEORY
An interesting variant of this theory is offered, as regards the Omaha tribe of North America, by Miss Alice Fletcher, whose knowledge of the inner mind of that people is no less remarkable than her scientific caution.[31] The conclusion of Miss Fletcher's valuable essay shows, at a glance, that her hypothesis contains the same fundamental error as that of Dr. Wilken: namely, the totem of the kin is derived from the manitu, or personal friendly object of an individual, a male ancestor. This cannot, we repeat, hold good for that early stage of society which reckons descent in the female line, and in which male ancestors do not found houses, clans, names, or totem kins.
The Omaha men, at puberty, after prayer and fasting, choose manitus suggested in dreams or visions. Miss Fletcher writes, 'As totems could be obtained but in one way—through the rite of the vision, the totem of a gens must have come into existence in that manner, and must have represented the manifestation of an ancestor's vision, that of a man whose ability and opportunity served to make him the founder of a family, of a group of kindred who dwelt together, fought together, and learned the value of united strength.'[32]
This explanation obviously cannot explain the Origin of Totemism among tribes where descent is reckoned in the female line, and where no man becomes 'the founder of a family.' The Omaha, a house-dwelling, agricultural tribe, with descent in the male line, with priests, and departmental gods, a tribe, too, among whom the manitu is not hereditable, can give us no line as to the origin of Totemism. Miss Fletcher's theory demands the hereditable character of the individual manitu, and yet it is never inherited.
MR. HILL TOUT'S THEORY
Mr. Hill Tout has evolved a theory out of the customs of the aborigines of British Columbia, among whom 'the clan totems are a development of the personal or individual totem or tutelar spirit.' The Salish tribes, in fact, seek for 'sulia, or tutelar spirits,' and these 'gave rise to the personal totem,' answering to manitu, nyarong, nagual, and so forth. 'From the personal and family crest is but a step to the clan crest.' Unluckily, with descent in the female line, the step cannot be taken. Mr. Hill Tout takes a village-inhabiting tribe, a tribe of village communities, as one in which Totemism is only nascent. 'The village community apparently formed the original unit of organisation.' But the Australians, who have not come within measurable distance of the village community, have already the organisation of the totem kin. Interesting as is Mr. Hill Tout's account of the Salish Indians, we need not dwell longer on an hypothesis which makes village communities prior to the evolution of Totemism. What he means by saying that 'the gens has developed into the clan,' I am unable to conjecture. The school of Major Powell use 'gens' of a totem kin with male, 'clan' of a totem kin with female descent. Mr. Hill Tout cannot mean that male descent is being converted into descent in the female line? As he writes of 'a four-clan system, each clan being made up of groups of gentes,' he may take a 'clan' to signify what is usually called a 'phratry.'[33]