[210] Division du Travail social, 3rd ed., p. 150.
[211] It is to be understood that this is not always the case. It frequently happens, as we have already said, that the simpler forms aid to a better understanding of the more complex. On this point, there is no rule of method which is applicable to every possible case.
[212] Thus the individual totemism of America will aid us in understanding the function and importance of that in Australia. As the latter is very rudimentary, it would probably have passed unobserved.
[213] Besides, there is not one unique type of totemism in America, but several different species which must be distinguished.
[214] We shall leave this field only very exceptionally, and when a particularly instructive comparison seems to us to impose itself.
[215] This is the definition given by Cicero: Gentiles sunt qui inter se eodem nomine sunt (Top. 6). (Those are of the same gens who have the same name among themselves.)
[216] It may be said in a general way that the clan is a family group, where kinship results solely from a common name; it is in this sense that the gens is a clan. But the totemic clan is a particular sort of the class thus constituted.
[217] In a certain sense, these bonds of solidarity extend even beyond the frontiers of the tribe. When individuals of different tribes have the same totem, they have peculiar duties towards each other. This fact is expressly stated for certain tribes of North America (see Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, III, pp. 57, 81, 299, 356-357). The texts relative to Australia are less explicit. However, it is probable that the prohibition of marriage between members of a single totem is international.
[218] Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 165.
[219] In Australia the words employed differ with the tribes. In the regions observed by Grey, they said Kobong; the Dieri say Murdu (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 91); the Narrinyeri, Ngaitye (Talpin, in Curr, II, p. 244); the Warramunga, Mungái or Mungáii (Nor. Tr., p. 754), etc.