A totem origin may probably be ascribed to the animal ancestry claimed by a chief or his tribe. Thus, it is said by M. M. Valikhanof[308] that “a characteristic feature in Central Asiatic traditions is the derivation of their origin from some animal.” The Kastsché, or Tele people, are said to have sprung from the marriage of a wolf and a beautiful Hun Princess. The Tugas professed to be descended from a she-wolf, and the Tufans, or Tibetans, from a dog. The Chinese affirmed, moreover, that Balaché, the hereditary chief of the Mongol Khans, was the son of a blue wolf[309] and a white hind. Traces of the use of totems by the Chinese themselves are not wanting. Their expression for the people is Pih-sing, meaning “the hundred family names.” As a fact, there are about four hundred such names in China, and the intermarriage of persons having the same family name is absolutely forbidden. The importance of this prohibition will be apparent when we come to consider the incidents of totemism. Mr. Robert Hart states[310] that some of the Chinese surnames have reference to animals, fruits, metals, natural objects, &c., such as Horse, Sheep, Ox,[311] Fish, Bird, Flower, Rice, River, Water, Cloud, Gold, &c., &c. He adds, “In some parts of the country large villages are met with, in each of which there exists but one family name; thus, in one district will be found, say, three villages, each containing two or three thousand people, the one of the ‘Horse,’ the second of the ‘Sheep,’ and the third of the ‘Ox’ family name.” According to the rule that a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name, a ‘Horse’ cannot marry a ‘Horse,’ but must marry a ‘Sheep,’ or an ‘Ox,’ and we may suppose that these animals were originally the totems or devices of particular family groups; in like manner, as the Wolf, the Bear, and the Beaver are, among the American aborigines, totems of the groups of kin to which the term gens is applied.
The former use of totems may probably be assumed also when animal names are applied, not to tribal divisions, but to the tribes themselves, as we have seen is the case with the Arabs. Thus, when the great Hindu Epic,[312] in describing the adventures of Arjuna, one of the Pandavan Princes, says that the Nagas or Serpents were defeated with the aid of Peacocks, we must understand that a people known as Peacocks, from their totemic device, defeated a people whose badge was a serpent. The Peacock was indeed the heraldic device of the Tambouk Kings of Orissa. Probably the existence of the Singhs or Lions, the warrior caste of the tribes of North-Western India, may be accounted for in the same way. Dr. M’Lennan[313] refers to numerous facts to prove that many animals, among others the Serpent, the Horse, the Bull, the Lion, the Bear, the Dog, and the Goat gave names to ancient tribes, who used the animals after whom they were called as badges. He goes further than this, and supposes that all the ancient nations passed through a totem stage, in which they had animals and plants for gods. This question, however, we shall have occasion to refer to later on.
The nature of totems having been shown, the object of totemism as a system has now to be explained. The Rev. George Taplin remarks that each Narrinyeri tribe is regarded as a family, every member of which is a blood relation, and the totem borne by the Australian tribe, or rather tribal division, is thus the symbol of a family group, in like manner as the American totem is the device of a gens. The first question asked of a stranger by the Dieyerie tribe of Cooper’s Creek, in Central Australia, is “Of what family (murdoo) are you?” Each murdoo is distinguished by a special name, being that of some object which, according to a tribal legend, may be animate or inanimate, such as a dog, mouse, emu, iguana, rain, &c.[314] It is evident that the Australian totemic device is equivalent to a family name, a name which belongs to all the members of a particular group, and which cannot be held by any person not belonging by birth or adoption to that group, so that it is aptly termed by the Rev. Lorimer Fison[315] a “badge of fraternity.” This badge answers to the “device of a gens,” as the token of the American tribes is defined, and its possession by any person is proof that he belongs to a particular gens or tribal division, and that he is entitled or subject to all the rights, privileges, and obligations of its members. Schoolcraft very properly terms the gens the totemic institution, and as the rights, privileges, and obligations of the gens are attached to the totem, a consideration of them will throw much light on the subject of this paper.
According to Mr. Morgan,[316] the gens came into being upon three principal conceptions, the bond of kin, a pure lineage through descent in the female line, and non-intermarriage in the gens. Leaving out of view for the present the question of descent, the other conceptions give rise to obligations of great importance. The bond of kin assumes the positive obligation of mutual help, defence, and redress of injuries among the members of the gens; while the third conception implies the negative obligation which prevents the intermarriage of persons belonging to a common totem. The negative obligation is, however, no less than the positive obligation, based on the conception of kinship, and the totem device of the gens is, therefore, well described as the badge of a fraternal group. The obligation of mutual aid and defence implies the co-relative duty of doing nothing to injure a fellow member of the gens, in accordance with which all individuals of the same totem must treat each other as brethren. This applies not only to human beings, but also to the totem objects, although these may be killed and eaten by persons not belonging to the fraternal group, by which they are regarded as sacred. Sir George Grey says,[317] in relation to the kobongs or totems of the Western Australians, “a certain mysterious connection exists between the family and its kobong, so that a member of the family will never kill an animal of the species to which his kobong belongs, should he find it asleep; indeed, he always kills it reluctantly, and never without affording it a chance of escape.” He adds: “This arises from the family belief, that some one individual of the species is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime, and to be carefully avoided. Similarly a native who has a vegetable for his kobong may not gather it under certain circumstances, and at a particular period of the year.” So, also, the aborigines of North America will not hunt, kill, or eat any animal of the form of their own totem.
Where, therefore, we find particular animals forbidden for food to a class of individuals we may assume that such animals have a totemic character. Thus, Bosman relates[318] that, on the Gold Coast of Guinea, each person “is forbidden the eating of one sort of flesh or other; one eats no mutton, another no goats’-flesh, beef, swines’-flesh, wild fowl, &c.” He points out that this restraint is not for a limited time, but for the whole of life; and as a son never eats what his father is restrained from, or a daughter that which her mother cannot eat, the forbidden object partakes of the nature of a totem. It is doubtful whether the Islanders of the Pacific ever possessed systematic totemism, although traces of the use of totems may, perhaps, be found in the names taken from plants met with in some of the islands, and even in the word “Samoa,” which is said by the Rev. Wyatt Gill[319] to mean “the family or clan of the Moa,” the Polynesian term for fowl. The Samoans entertained ideas as to particular animals, such as the eel, the shark, the turtle, the dog, the owl, and the lizard, similar to the notions associated with the totems of other peoples. They supposed those animals to be incarnations of household deities, and no man dare injure or eat the animal which was the incarnation of his own god, although he could eat freely of the incarnation of another man’s god.[320]
Notions of the same kind were prevalent throughout the islands of the Pacific.[321] Thus, the Fijians supposed every man to be under the protection of a special god, who resided in or was symbolised by some animal, or other natural object, such as a rat, a shark, a hawk, a tree, &c. No one would eat the particular animal associated with his own god;[322] which explains the fact that cannibalism was not quite universal among the Fijians, as some gods were believed to reside in human bodies. The heathen Fijians allow souls not only to all mankind, but to animals and plants, and even to houses, canoes, and all mechanical contrivances. As soon as their parents die they are enrolled among the family gods, whose protecting care is firmly believed in.[323] It is very probable that these gods, who answer to the household deities of the Samoans, are regarded as being incarnate in the sacred animals, &c., of the tribe, towards whom, as being re-embodiments of deceased ancestors, they necessarily stand in a fraternal relation.
These ideas show a close connection between animal-worship and ancestor-worship, and they have an important bearing on the origin of totemism. We have seen that the obligations of the totemic institution are based on the conception of kinship. This is also essential to ancestor-worship, which, like totemism, rests on the obligation of mutual aid and protection. The worshippers make the offerings and perform the rites required by their deceased ancestors, who in return give their protection and assistance to their descendants. This mutual obligation is associated with the superstitious regard for certain animals and other objects. The venerated animals are not killed or eaten by those who are connected with them by superstitious ties, and they are supposed, on their part, to act as protectors to their human allies, by whom they are viewed as guardian spirits. Catlin, the American traveller, gives a vivid description of the mode in which the Indian acquires such a guardian. He states[324] that every Indian must “make mystery,” that is, obtain the protection of some mysterious power which is supposed to be connected with what is known as the mystery bag. When a boy has attained the age of 14 or 15 years, he absents himself for several days from his father’s lodge, “lying on the ground in some remote or secluded spot, crying to the Great Spirit, and fasting the whole time. During this period of peril and abstinence, when he falls asleep, the first animal, bird, or reptile of which he dreams (or pretends to have dreamed, perhaps), he considers the Great Spirit has designated for his mysterious protector through life. He then returns home to his father’s lodge, and relates his success, and after allaying his thirst and satisfying his appetite, he sallies forth with weapons or traps until he can procure the animal or bird, the skin of which he preserves entire, and ornaments it according to his own fancy, and carries it with him through life, for good luck (as he calls it): as his strength in battle, and in death his guardian spirit, that is buried with him, and which is to conduct him safe to the beautiful hunting grounds, which he contemplates in the world to come.” In California it was thought that the Great Spirit sent, in a vision, to every child of seven years of age, the appearance of some animal to be its protector or guardian. The African fetish superstition is of much the same character, as the fetish object is worshipped solely that it may give the protecting aid which the Indian expects from his animal guardian. Mr. Cruickshank says,[325] in relation to the natives of the Gold Coast of Western Africa, that they believe “the Supreme Being has bestowed upon a variety of objects, animate and inanimate, the attributes of Deity, and that he directs every individual man in his choice of his object of worship.... It may be a block, a stone, a tree, a river, a lake, a mountain, a snake, an alligator, a bundle of rags, or whatever the extravagent imagination of the idolater may pitch upon.” Here, although the nature of the protecting influence is apparently different from that which the Americans are supposed to obtain, it is in reality the same. In either case it is a guardian spirit, whether it is called a “mystery” animal or an object having the attributes of Deity.
Dr. M’Lennan saw a necessary connection between totemism and animal-worship, and he affirms[326] that the ancient nations passed, in pre-historic times, “through the totem stage, having animals and plants, and the heavenly bodies conceived as animals, for gods before the anthropomorphic gods appeared.” By totem, Dr. M’Lennan evidently understood merely the animal or plant friend or protector of the family or tribe, and if it had any reference to soul or spirit, it is the soul or spirit of the animal or plant. He speaks[327] of men “believing themselves to be of the serpent-breed derived from serpent-ancestors,” and so of other animals. He does not see in the totem any reference to the actual progenitor of the family, and he could hardly do so in accordance with his view of the mental condition of men in the totem stage, where “natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants, and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess.” Professor Robertson Smith accepts, in his work on the early Arabs,[328] Dr. M’Lennan’s views on the subject of totemism and animal-worship, and gives as one of the three points which supply complete proof of early totemism in any race, “the prevalence of the conception that the members of the stock are of the blood of the eponym animal, or are sprung from a plant of the species chosen as totem.” When Prof. Smith comes to consider this point, however, it appears that among the Arabs certain animals were not eaten because “they were thought to be men in another guise,” that is, they were not merely animals but were men in disguise.[329] This is very different from the animistic theory, which makes men trace their descent from animals or plants, although these may be supposed to have the same kind of spirits as their human descendants; but it is consistent with the doctrine of transmigration to which we shall have soon to refer.
Dr. M’Lennan’s hypothesis may be tested by what we know of the animal-worship of ancient Egypt, where some animals were universally worshipped, while others were regarded with veneration only in particular districts, of which they were the guardians, and by whose inhabitants they were carefully protected. We have here the operation of the idea of a special relation subsisting between certain persons and particular animals, such as we have seen to exist in connection with totemism; and that relationship must, according to Dr. M’Lennan’s hypothesis that animal and plant gods were the earliest to be worshipped, have depended on the animal descent of those persons. This explanation may appear to find some support in M. Maspero’s statement,[330] that all the sacred animals of Egypt were at first adored in their animal character, and that afterwards they were identified with the gods of whom ultimately they became the incarnation or living tabernacle. It is very improbable, however, that the gods would be identified with animals, unless such animals were already regarded as divine, or as connected with the peoples of whom they were the guardians—by virtue of such a special relationship as is thought by the Pacific Islanders to subsist between certain persons and the sacred animals in which their ancestors are incarnated. As a fact, the worship of animals was established in ancient Egypt by a king of the second dynasty.[331] Moreover, it has been shown by M. Pierret that the Egyptian religion was essentially monotheistic, the different gods represented on the monuments being merely symbols. “Their very form,” says that writer, “proves that we cannot see in them real beings. A god represented with the head of a bird or of a quadruped can have only an allegorical character, in like manner as the lion with a human head called a sphinx has never passed for a real animal. It is only a question of hieroglyphics. The various personages of the Pantheon represent the functions of the Supreme God, of the only and hidden God, who preserves His identity and the fulness of His attributes under each of His forms.” Dupuis, in his History of Religions,[332] refers to the ancient opinion that the division of Egypt into thirty-six nomes or provinces was in imitation of the thirty-six decans into which the Zodiac was divided, each of which had its protector. The heavenly guardians became the protecting deities of the Egyptian nomes which took the names of the animals there revered as images of the patron gods. That opinion is consistent with the view expressed by M. Pierret as to the character of the Egyptian deities. Dr. M’Lennan supposes,[333] however, that the heavenly bodies were conceived as gods before the anthropomorphic gods appeared. He argues that, as there is nothing in the grouping of the stars to suggest animal forms, and as stars, when named, were given names that commanded respect, if not veneration, “the animals whose names were transferred to the stars or Stellar groups, were on earth highly, if not religiously, regarded,” in support of which view he shows that nearly all the animals so honoured were anciently worshipped as gods. It by no means follows, however, that these animals were so worshipped before being transferred to the heavens; and possibly this had nothing to do with any special regard for such animals. Much depends on the origin and object of the constellations. There is still great uncertainty on this point, but it is probable that the signs of the Zodiac, at least, were supposed to represent certain cosmical phenomena connected with the progress of the seasons, or with day and night, half of the signs being diurnal and masculine, and the other half being nocturnal and feminine.[334]
In a very suggestive work by Mr. Andrew Lang, it is said[335] that Dr. M’Lennan gave up his hypothesis and ceased to have any view on the origin of totemism, and that its origin and determining causes are still unknown. Mr. Lang himself suggests a probable origin when he says, “people united by contiguity, and by the blind sentiment of kinship not yet brought into explicit consciousness, might mark themselves by a badge, and might thence devise a name, and later might invent a myth of their descent from the object which the badge represented;” the meaning of which appears to be that, before blood relationship was recognised, persons living together marked[336] themselves to enable their common origin to be remembered. Mr. Lang adds, however, that “the very nature of totemism shows that it took its present shape at a time when men, animals, and plants were conceived of as physically akin; when names were handed on through the female line; when exogamy was the rule of marriage, and when the family theoretically included all persons bearing the same family name, that is, all who claimed kindred with the same plant, animal, or object, whether the persons are really akin or not.” According to this view, kinship was fully recognised when totemism was established; as descent in the female line is based on that recognition, and exogamy was the result of the objection entertained by the lower races to the intermarriage of persons nearly related by blood or adoption. This feeling could hardly be so strong when totemism took its present shape, which is probably its original shape, if, when totems were invented, kinship was not recognised. The very nature of the totem is the conception of a special relation between men and certain animals and plants, and it is this conception, together with that of the totem as a protecting influence, which have to be explained.