Mr. Howitt, in his turn, does not approve of my idea, thus stated by him, that "the plant and animal names would be impressed upon each group from without, and some of them would stick, would be stereotyped, and each group would come to answer to its nickname." He replies—
"To me, judging of the possible feelings of the ancestors of the Australians by their descendants of the present time, it seems most improbable that any such nicknames would have been adopted and have given rise to totemism, nor do I know of a single instance in which such names have been adopted."[34] Mr. Howitt, of course, could not possibly find kinships now adopting animal and other such names given from without, because all kinships where totemism exists have got such names already, and with the names a sacred body of customs. But does he suppose that the many local tribes calling themselves by their word for "No" (as Kabi, Kamil, Wonghi, and so on), originally gave these names to themselves, saying, "We are the people who, when we mean 'No,' say 'Wonghi'"? That seems to me hardly credible! Much more probably tribes who used Kamil or Kabi for "No" gave the name of Wonghi to a tribe who used Wonghi in place of their Kamil or Kabi. In that case the tribes, as tribes, have adopted names given from without.
Again, I consider that the feelings of that noble savage, the Red Indian, are at least as sensitive to insult as those of Mr. Howitt's blacks. Now it so happens that the Blackfoot Indians of North America, who apparently have passed out of totemism, have "gentes, a gens being a body of consanguineal kinsmen in the male line," writes Mr. G. B. Grinnell.[35] These clans, no longer totemic, needed names, and some of their names, at least, are most insulting nicknames. Thus we have Naked Dogs, Skunks, They Don't Laugh, Buffalo Dung, All Crazy Dogs, Fat Roasters, and—Liars! No men ever gave such names to their own community. In a diagram of the arrangement of these clans in camp, made about 1850, we find the gentes of the Pi-kun'-I under such pretty titles as we have given.[36]
To return from America to Australia, the Narrinyeri tribe, like the Sioux and Blackfeet, have reckoning of descent in the male line, and, like the Sioux, have local settlements (called "clans" by Mr. Howitt), and these local settlements have names. Does Mr. Howitt think it likely that one such "clan" called itself "Where shall we go?" and another called itself "Gone over there"?[37] These look to me like names given by other groups. Tribes, local groups ("clans"), and totem kins having names already, I cannot expect to show Mr. Howitt the names of such sets of people in the act of being given from without and accepted. But, as regards individuals, they "often have what may be called a nickname, arising from some strongly marked feature in their figures, or from fancied resemblance to some animal or plant."[38] The individuals "answer to" such nicknames, I suppose, but they cannot evolve, in a lifetime, respect for the plant or animal that yields the nickname, because they cannot forget how they come to bear it.
Obvious at a glance as such replies to such objections are, it seems that they have not occurred to the objectors.
If we want to discover clans adopting and glorying in names which are certainly, in origin, derisive nicknames, we find Clan Diarmaid, whose name, Campbell, means "Wry Mouth,"[38] and Clan Cameron, whose name means "Crooked Nose."[39] Moreover, South African tribes believe that tribal siboko, as Baboon and Alligator, may, and did, arise out of nicknames; for, as we have seen, their myths assert that nicknames are the origin of such tribal and now honourable names. I cannot prove, of course, that the process of adopting a name given from without occurred among prehistoric men, but I have demonstrated that, among all sorts and conditions of men in our experience, the process is a vera causa.
Dismissing my theory, Mr. Howitt, in place of it, "could more easily imagine that these early savages might, through dreams, have developed the idea of relationship with animals, or even with plants."[40] They might; a man, as in the case given, might dream of a lace lizard, and believe that he was one. He might even be named, as an individual, "Lace Lizard," but that does not help us. Totem names, as Mr. Fison insists, are, and always were, group names. But Mr. Howitt "gets no forrarder," if he means that the children of his Lace Lizard become a totem kin of Lace Lizards, for under a system of female descent the man's children would not be Lace Lizards. Does Mr. Howitt know of a single instance in a tribe with female kin where the children of a man who, on dream evidence, believed himself to be a Kangaroo, were styled Kangaroos? He must adopt the line of saying that, while totemism was being evolved, women did the dreaming of being Hakea flowers, Witchetty Grubs, Kangaroos, Emus, and so forth, and bequeathed the names to their children. But he will not find that process going on in any known instance, I fear.
The processes of my hypothesis, though necessarily conjectural, are at least veræ causæ, are in human nature, as we know it. A curious new example of totems, certainly based on sobriquets not derived from animals, occurs among the Warramanga tribe of Central Australia. One totem kin is merely called "The Men" (Kati), the name which, in dozens of cases, a tribe gives to itself. Another totem kin is called "The Laughing Boys" (Thaballa), a name which is obviously a nickname, and not given from within. The Thaballa have found it necessary to evolve a myth about descent from a giggling boy and his giggling playmates, and to practise magic for their behoof, as they are supposed not to be dead. All this has clearly been done by the Laughing Boy totem kin merely to keep themselves in line with other totem kins named from lower animal form.[41] This totem name can have been nothing but a group nickname.[42]
I have next to explain the nature of the superstitious regard paid by totemists to their name-giving animals.
My guess, says Dr. Durkheim, is "difficult for those who know the religious character of the totem, the cult of which it is our object to explain. How could a sobriquet become the centre of a regular religious system?"