[852] Among the Wakelbura, where, according to Curr and Howitt, each matrimonial class has its own totems, the animal shows the class (see Curr, III, p. 28); among the Buandik, it reveals the clan (Mrs. James S. Smith, The Buandik Tribes of S. Australian Aborigines, p, 128). Cf. Howitt, On Some Australian Beliefs, in J.A.I., XIII, p. 191; XIV, p. 362; Thomas, An American View of Totemism, in Man, 1902, No. 85; Mathews, Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, pp. 347-348; Brough Smyth, I, p. 110; Nor. Tr., p. 513.
[853] Roth, Superstition, etc., § 83. This is probably a form of sexual totemism.
[854] Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika, II, p. 190.
[855] K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Bräsiliens, 1894, pp. 511, 512.
[856] See Frazer, Golden Bough2, I, pp. 250, 253, 256, 257, 258.
[857] Third Rep., pp. 229, 233.
[858] Indian Tribes, IV, p. 86.
[859] For example, among the Batta of Sumatra (see Golden Bough2, III, p. 420), in Melanesia (Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 178), in the Malay Archipelago (Tylor, Remarks on Totemism, in J.A.I., New Series, I, p. 147). It is to be remarked that the cases where the soul clearly presents itself after death in an animal form all come from the societies where totemism is more or less perverted. This is because the idea of the soul is necessarily ambiguous wherever the totemic beliefs are relatively pure, for totemism implies that it participate in the two kingdoms at the same time. So it cannot become either one or the other exclusively, but takes one aspect or the other, according to the circumstances. As totemism develops, this ambiguity becomes less necessary, while at the same time, spirits more actively demand attention. Then the marked affinities of the soul for the animal kingdom are manifested, especially after it is freed from the human body.
[860] See above, p. 170. On the generality of the doctrine of metempsychosis, see Tylor, II, pp. 8 ff.
[861] Even if we believe that religious and moral representations constitute the essential elements of the idea of the soul, still we do not mean to say that they are the only ones. Around this central nucleus are grouped other states of consciousness having this same character, though to a slighter degree. This is the case with all the superior forms of the intellectual life, owing to the special price and dignity attributed to them by society. When we devote our lives to science or art, we feel that we are moving in a circle of things that are above bodily sensations, as we shall have occasion to show more precisely in our conclusion. This is why the highest functions of the intelligence have always been considered specific manifestations of the soul. But they would probably not have been enough to establish the idea of it.