and villages named as eaters of:
Old Ewes
Onions
Crows.
We shall see that many Sioux groups, many English villages are blazoned, as in Mr. Haddon's theory, by the names of the things which they eat: or are accused of eating.
Thus, among very early men, the names by which the groups knew their neighbours would be names given from without. To call them 'nicknames,' is to invite the objection that nicknames are essentially derisive, and that groups so low could not yet use the language of derision. I see no reason why early articulate-speaking men (or even men whose language is gesture language) should be so modern as to lack all sense of humour, all delight in derision. But the names need not have been derisive. If these people had the present savage belief in the wakan, or mystic power of animals, the names may even have been laudatory. I ask for no more than names conferred from without, call them nicknames, sobriquets, or what you like.
We are acquainted with no race that is just entered on Totemism, unless we agree with Mr. Hill Tout that Totemism is nascent among the Salish tribe, who live in village communities. Consequently we cannot prove that early hostile groups would name each other after plants and animals. I am only able to demonstrate that, alike in English and French folk-lore, and among American tribes who reckon by the male line, who are agricultural and settled, the villages or groups are named, from without, after plants and animals, and after what they are supposed to be specially apt to use as articles of food, and also by nick-names—often derisive. What I present is, not proof that the primal groups named each other after plants and animals, but proof that among our rustics, by congruity of fancy, such names are given, with other names exactly analogous to those now used among settled savages moving away from Totemism.
ILLUSTRATION FROM FOLK-LORE
I select illustrative examples from the blason populaire of modern folk-lore. Here we find the use of plant and animal names for neighbouring groups, villages, or parishes. Thus two informants in a rural district of Cornwall, living at a village which I shall call Loughton, found that, when they walked through the neighbouring village, Hillborough, the little boys 'called cuckoo at the sight of us.' They learned that the cuckoo was the badge, in folk-lore, of their village. An ancient carved and gilded dove in the Loughton church 'was firmly believed by many of the inhabitants to be a representation of the Loughton Cuckoo,' and all Loughton folk were Cuckoos. 'It seems as if the inhabitants do not care to talk about these things, for some reason or other.' A travelled Loughtonian 'believes the animal names and symbols to be very ancient, and that each village has its symbol.' My informants think that 'some modern badges have been substituted for more ancient ones,' such as tiger and monkey. There is apparently no veneration of the local beast, bird, or insect, which seems often, on the other hand, to have been imposed from without as a token of derision. Australians make a great totem of the Witchetty Grub (as Spencer and Gillen report), but the village of Oakditch is not proud of its potato grub, the natives themselves being styled 'tater grubs.' I append a list of villages (with false names[46]) and of their badges:
| Hillborough | Mice | Brailing | Peesweeps |
| Loughton | Cuckoos | Wickley | Tigers |
| Miltown | Mules | Fenton | Rooks |
| (it used to be rats) | Linton | Men | |
| Ashley | Monkeys | Oakditch | Potato grubs |
| Yarby | Geese | St. Aldate's | Fools |
| Watworth | Bulldogs |
At Loughton, when the Hillborough boys pass through on a holiday excursion, the Loughton boys hang out dead mice, the Hillborough badge, in derision. The boys have even their 'personal totem,' and a lad who wishes for a companion in nocturnal adventure will utter the cry of his peculiar beast or bird, and a friend will answer with his. If boys remained always boys (that is, savages), and if civilisation were consequently wiped out, myths about these group names of villages would be developed, and Totemism would flourish again. Later I give other instances of village names answering to totem names, and in an Appendix I give analogous cases collected by Miss Burne in Shropshire, and others, we saw, are to be found in the blason populaire of France.