[612] However, we have not spoken of the theory of Spencer. But this is because it is only a part of his general theory of the transformation of the ancestor-cult into the nature-cult. As we have described that already, it is not necessary to repeat it.
[613] Except that Lang ascribes another source to the idea of the great gods: as we have already said, he believes that this is due to a sort of primitive revelation. But Lang does not make use of this idea in his explanation of totemism.
[614] For example, in a Kwakiutl myth, an ancestral hero pierces the head of an enemy by pointing a finger at him (Boas, Vth Rep. on the North. Tribes of Canada, B.A.A.S., 1889, p. 30).
[615] References supporting this assertion will be found on p. 128, n. 1, and p. 320, n. 1.
[616] See Bk. III, ch. ii.
[617] See, for example, Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 482; Schürmann, The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln, in Woods, Nat. Tr. of S. Australia, p. 231.
[618] Frazer has even taken many facts from Samoa which he presents as really totemic (See Totemism, pp. 6, 12-15, 24, etc.). It is true that we have charged Frazer with not being critical enough in the choice of his examples, but so many examples would obviously have been impossible if there had not really been important survivals of totemism in Samoa.
[619] See Turner, Samoa, p. 21 and ch. iv and v.
[620] Alice Fletcher, A Study of the Omaha Tribe, in Smithsonian Rep. for 1897, pp. 582 f.
[621] Dorsey, Siouan Sociology, in XVth Rep., p. 238.