The men of the same tribe are extensively acquainted with the totems which belong to each, and if on any record of this kind the figure of a man appears without any designatory mark, it is immediately understood that he is a Sioux or at least a stranger. Indeed, in most instances the figures of men are not used at all, merely the totem or surname, being given. * * * It may be observed that the Algonkins believe all other Indians to have totems, though from the necessity they are in general under of remaining ignorant of those hostile bands, the omission of the totem in their picture writing serves to designate an enemy. Thus, those bands of Ojibbeways who border on the country of the Dahcotah or Sioux, always understand the figure of a man without totem to mean one of that people.
Fig. 513.—Tamga of Kirghise tribes.
In Sketches of Northwestern Mongolia, (a) are the tamga or seals of Kirghise tribes, of which Fig. 513 is a copy.
The explanation given is as follows: a. Kipchaktamga: letter alip. b. Arguin tamga: eyes. c. Naiman tamga: posts (of door). d. Kong-rat, Kirei, tamga: vine. e. Nak tamga: prop. f. Tarakti tamga: comb. g. Tyulimgut tamga: pike.
SECTION 2.
GENTILE AND CLAN DESIGNATIONS.
The clan and totemic system formerly called the gentile system undoubtedly prevailed anciently in Europe and Asia, but first became understood by observations of its existence in actual force among the aborigines of America and Australia, and typical representations of it are still found among them. In Australia it is called kobong. An animal or a plant, or sometimes a heavenly body was mythologically at first and at last sociologically connected with all persons of a certain stock, who believe, or once believed, that it was their tutelar god and they bear its name.
Each clan or gens took as a badge or objective totem the representation of the tutelar daimon from which it was named. As most Indian tribes were zootheistic, the object of their devotion was generally an animal—e. g., an eagle, a panther, a buffalo, a bear, a deer, a raccoon, a tortoise, a snake, or a fish, but sometimes was one of the winds, a celestial body, or other impressive object or phenomenon.
American Indians once generally observed a prohibition against killing the animal connected with their totem or eating any part of it. For instance, most of the southern Indians abstained from killing the wolf; the Navajo do not kill bears; the Osage never killed the beaver until the skins became valuable for sale. Afterward some of the animals previously held sacred were killed; but apologies were made to them at the time, and in almost all cases the prohibition or taboo survived with regard to certain parts of those animals which were not to be eaten on the principle of synecdoche, the temptation to use the food being too strong to permit entire abstinence. The Cherokee forbade the use of the tongues of the deer and bear for food. They cut these members out and cast them into the fire sacramentally. A practice still exists among the Ojibwa as follows: There is a formal restriction against members of the bear clan eating the animal, yet by a subdivision within the same clan an arrangement is made so that sub-clans may among them eat the whole animal. When a bear is killed, the head and paws are eaten by those who form one branch of the bear totem, and the remainder is reserved for the others. Other Indian tribes have invented a differentiation in which some clansmen may eat the ham and not the shoulder of certain animals, and others the shoulder and not the ham.