[449]. (c) Descent from the totem. Details so far reported as to this belief are regrettably few and often indefinite, and it is not possible to give more than a provisional sketch of it.[798] In Central Australia it is held that all the members of a clan come into being as spirit children, who are the creation of mythical half-human, half-animal beings of the olden time; the clan bears the name of the mythical ancestor (its totem), and its members regard themselves as identical in blood and nature with the totem.[799] Similar beliefs are reported as existing in New South Wales and West Australia, and a definite conception of descent from the totem has been found in the Santa Cruz group in Southern Melanesia, in Fiji in Eastern Melanesia, and apparently in Tonga and Tikopia.[800] In North America the belief is reported as existing among the Lenâpé (Delawares) and other Eastern tribes.[801] In South America it appears among the Arawaks of Guiana,[802] and perhaps elsewhere. For Africa there is little information on this point, and what we have is not always definite;[803] one of the clearest expressions of descent is found in the title "grandfather" given to the chameleon by the Chameleon clan of the Herrero of German Southwest Africa, but a comparison with the similar title given by the Zulus to a sort of divine ancestor, and with the Herrero mythical stories of the origins of certain clans, suggests that the conception is vague.
[450]. In addition to the more direct statements there are traditions or myths that connect the origin of clans with animals or plants through the intermediation of gods or human beings, by marriage, or some other relation. The Bushbuck clan of the East African Baganda worship a lion-god, who is called an ancestor and is said to have turned into a lion at his death. Fluctuating opinions (some persons holding to direct descent from a nonhuman object, others to friendly relations between it and the ancestor) are reported in Sumatra, Borneo, and the Moluccas. The Hurons regarded the rattlesnake as a kinsman of their ancestor. The origin of the clan or family is referred to marriage with an animal by the Borneo Dyaks and various tribes on the African Gold Coast, and to marriage with a plant by some of the Upper Liluet;[804] and the origin of the crests in Northwestern America is ascribed to adventures with crest animals.[805] In the Trobriand group of islands (lying to the northeast of British New Guinea) the totems are said to have been brought by the first men; naturally it is not explained whence and how the men got them.[806]
[451]. These instances of indirect origination (to which others of the sort might be added) show a variety of points of view, and may be variously interpreted. They may be regarded as declensions from an earlier belief in the direct descent of the clan from the totem, or as independent conceptions that never grew into this belief. Both these ideas of the form of descent are found in widely separated regions and in communities differing one from another in general culture and in the degree of importance they attach to the totemic constitution. The possibility of general agreement in myths, with difference in details, between tribes remote from one another is illustrated by the creation myths of the Australian Arunta (who have an elaborate totemism) and the Thompson River Indians of Northwestern America (who have no clan totems, secret societies, or dramatic ceremonies); both relate transformations of primitive unformed persons, but in the former the creators are half-human, half-animal, in the latter they are men who transform half-human, half-animal beings. Such widespread variations point to early differences in social conditions and in intellectual endowments with the nature of which we are not acquainted.[807]
[452]. (d) Refusal to kill or eat the totem. The usages in regard to killing or eating the totem are so diverse, and often so uncertain, that it is not possible to lay down a general rule of prohibition. An edible totem is only a peculiar sort of sacred animal or plant, and respect for such objects often leads to refusal to kill or eat them—an interdiction of this sort does not in itself show whether or not the object in question is a totem. But within totemic areas the usage varies in a remarkable manner, as, for example, in Australia. In the north there is complete prohibition, sometimes including the totems of a man's father, mother, and father's father. Among the central tribes a man kills his clan totem only for the benefit of other clans, and eats a little of it ceremonially. In the southeast the Dieri, it is said, kill and eat their totems freely, while other tribes, the Wotjoballuk and others, eat them only at a pinch.[808] The northeastern tribes have many food taboos, which, however, relate not to the totemic clans but to the exogamous subclasses. A modified regard for the totem or crest (kobong) appears in West Australia, according to Sir George Grey's report[809]; it is not allowable to kill a family kobong while it is asleep, and it is always with reluctance that it is killed.
[453]. Abstention from killing and eating the totem holds, as a rule, in the Torres Straits islands, while in New Guinea the custom varies—the totem is eaten by some tribes, not eaten by others.
[454]. In Melanesia the food restrictions connected with animal patrons or friends of clans are less definite than in Australia. Here, also, there are local differences of usage. Prohibition of eating or using the totem (fish, grass, fowl, and so forth) was found by Rivers in the Santa Cruz group (in Southern Melanesia) but not in the northern New Hebrides.[810] In the central islands the prohibition refers to the exogamous classes, and a similar usage is reported as existing in the Duke of York group (in the north). The Fijians refrain from eating their tribal sacred animals.
[455]. In Polynesia family gods appear instead of totems, and the incarnations of gods (in animals and plants) are not eaten; such is the rule in Samoa and Tonga, and this was formerly the practice in Hawaii. The food restrictions in Borneo and Sumatra are not definitely totemic.
[456]. The non-Aryan tribes of India generally refrain from eating their totems, or, in some cases, from injuring or using them; and this is true even of those tribes (for example, the Khonds and Oraons of Bengal) that have somewhat developed theistic systems. Occasionally exemptions from the rule of abstention are procured, perhaps under Aryan influence; such influence has affected many of the tribes, but has not usually destroyed the old totemic customs. Among the Todas (in the south), however, Rivers found only feeble suggestions of totemic objects and food restrictions; the buffalo-cult seems to have ousted all others.[811]
[457]. Among the native tribes of Africa there is special respect for the object with which the clan or tribe has particularly definite relations. The Bakuana do not eat the animal whose name is borne by the clan; if an animal (the lion, for example) is dangerous, it is killed with an apology. The Herrero (of German Southeast Africa) abstain from the flesh of the chameleon, and will not eat gray sheep or oxen. Among the half-civilized Baganda, of the east, certain of the clans refrain from eating the object from which a clan takes its name; the noteworthy political organization of these people seems to have obliterated old clan functions in part. In the west (Senegambia, Ashanti, Dahomi, Nigeria, Congo) there are food restrictions, but these are not generally connected with totemic social organizations.
[458]. There is little evidence for totemic food restrictions in North America. The custom of apologizing to an animal on killing it, frequent elsewhere, is reported as existing among the Algonkin Ottawas and Menomini; but this is not necessarily totemic. The more advanced tribes of the East and South (Algonkin, Iroquois, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasas, Cherokees, Natchez), the peoples of the Pacific Coast, and the agricultural tribes of the middle of the continent (Pueblos, Mandans, and others) appear to be free from restrictions as to eating. The Navahos are said to refrain from the flesh of fish, turkeys, swine, and bears, but the grounds of the interdiction are not clear.[812] The distinctest evidence of totemistic clan food-taboos are found among the Siouan Caddos (of the southern Mississippi Valley) and the Omahas (of the Middle West). Both these groups are in part agricultural, and it does not appear how they have come to differ from their neighbors in this regard. Food restrictions are reported for the Northwest region.[813]