Totemism

“ A man who does not inherit his father's totem because of the accident of his conception in a local centre of another totem, does, none the less, inherit his totemic ceremonies and rites. Totemism is thus en pleine décadence among the Arunta, from whom, consequently, nothing can be learned as to the origin of totemism. ”

“ Not only is the theory of totemism controversial, but the very facts concerning it are hardly to be expressed in such general statements as were attempted above. There is hardly an assertion to which one would not have to add exceptions and contradictions. ”

“ For us totemism is interesting because it proves the existence of that savage mental attitude which assumes kindred and alliance between man and the things in the world. As will afterwards be seen, totemism has also left its mark on the mythologies of the civilised races. We shall examine the institution first as it is found in Australia, because the Australian form of totemism shows in the highest known degree the savage habit of confusing in a community of kinship men, stars, plants, beasts, the heavenly bodies, and the forces of Nature. ”

“ Thus totemism arises, not from a religious, but from a prosaic everyday need of mankind. The giving of names, which is the essence of totemism, is a result of the technique of primitive writing. The totem is of the nature of an easily represented writing symbol. But if savages first bore the name of an animal they deduced the idea of relationship from this animal. ”

“ Relation of totemism to religion. As the beginnings of totemism are obscure it is not possible to say exactly what a man's attitude toward his totem was in the earliest period. But, when the totemic relation became a definite feature of social organization, the feeling was that the totem was in the nature of a clansman, of the same blood as the human group, and entitled to all the respect and affection with which men regarded their clan-brethren. ”

“ Not only do we see these various customs, which in several parts of the world have been observed as living elements of totem-cults, and which in other parts have been accepted as evidence of totem-worship in the past, but in the agricultural habits of the people we may see an efficient cause of the decay of totemism, if at some time in the past it has flourished among them. ”

“ Totemism is a religious as well as a social system. On its religious side it consists of the relations of mutual respect and consideration between a person and his totem, and on its social side it is composed of obligations of the members of the clan towards each other and towards other tribes. In the later history of totemism these two sides show a tendency to part company; the social system often survives the religious and conversely remnants of totemism remain in the religion of countries in which the social system based upon totemism has disappeared. ”

“ In a tone more serious, it may be reiterated that no theory of the origin of Totemism is likely to be correct which derives the totem, in the first instance, in any way, from the individual, the private man. ”

“ The first chapter of this book made us acquainted with the conception of totemism. We heard that totemism is a system which takes the place of religion among certain primitive races in Australia, America, and Africa, and furnishes the basis of social organization. We know that in 1869 the Scotchman MacLennan attracted general interest to the phenomena of totemism, which until then had been considered merely as curiosities, by his conjecture that a large number of customs and usages in various old as well as modern societies were to be taken as remnants of a totemic epoch. ”

“ It is objected, as to the origin of totemism, that too much influence is given to accident, too little to design. The answer is that “accident” plays a great part in all evolution, and that, in the opposed theory, the existence and actual exogamous function of totems is also accidental, arising from ignorance and a peculiar superstition. It is urged that no men would accept a nickname given from without by hostile groups. ”

“ Totemism is a kind of worship rendered to animals and vegetables considered as allied and related to man. The worship of animals and plants is found as a survival in all ancient societies and is the origin of the belief in the transmigration of souls. Totemism seems to have been as widespread as the animism from which it is derived, and has been closely intertwined in the development of religious beliefs. Totemism in a modified form is found in the Old Testament where animals speak on occasion, as the serpent48 in Genesis, or Balaam's ass. ”

“ The Ritual of Death and Resurrection THIS view of totemism throws light on a class of religious rites of which no adequate explanation, so far as I am aware, has yet been offered. Amongst many savage tribes, especially such as are known to practice totemism, it is customary for lads at puberty to undergo certain initiatory rites, of which one of the commonest is a pretence of killing the lad and bringing him to life again. Such rites become intelligible if we suppose that their substance consists in extracting the youth's soul in order to transfer it to his totem. ”

“ Of the origin of these beliefs, which have practical effects in the evolution of society and religion, much, we saw, is conjectured, but as we know no race in the act of becoming totemic—as in all peoples which we can study totemism is an old institution, and in most is manifestly decaying or being transmuted—we can only form the guesses of which examples have been given. ”

“ Now an agricultural, metallurgic people, with male descent, in the middle barbarism, will explain its survivals of totemism by a myth natural in its intellectual and social condition; but not natural in the condition of the homeless nomad hunters, among whom totemism arose. For example, we have no reason to suspect that when totemism began men had a highly developed religion of ancestor-worship. ”

“ Besides being a social institution and a friendly bond between man and beast, Totemism is an attempt to explain the universe. Its spiritual vitality depends on the widely rooted belief in archetypes; the things seen are the mirror of the things unseen, the material 102is unreal, the immaterial the only reality. We are ourselves but cages of immortal birds. ”

“ The presumption, therefore, is that neither in totemism, if we dissect it, shall we find religion pre-formed. Indeed, there is the possibility that totemism, on dissection, will be found to have no such content—that the hope or expectation of finding anything in it is as vain, is as much doomed to disappointment, as is the expectation of the child who cuts open his drum, thinking to find inside it something which produces the sound. ”

“ However, as I have observed, sex totems have been found nowhere but in Australia; so that as a rule the savage who practises totemism need not have more than one soul out of his body at a time.596
The Battas of Sumatra, who have totemism, believe that every person has a soul which is always outside of his body. ”

“ Totemism is indeed a subject of extraordinary difficulty: its literature is enormous and rapidly growing; and it is out of the question in this book to do more than point out its problems, and put the reader in the way of pursuing the study for himself. ”

“ We are, by the logic of the position, compelled to say that custom and tradition must have preserved many relics of totemism, and that so far from seeking to explain custom and tradition by the theory of totemism, we must seek to explain the survival of totemism by custom and tradition. I lay stress on this view of the case because it is hard to combat the views of those who look upon "mere superstition" as no explanation of primitive originals. To [Pg 295] us of the present day the beliefs of the peasantry are no doubt properly definable as "mere superstition." ”

“ If to some of you much of what I have said be trite as well as dull, I would plead that it is labour not always lost to restate the obvious; for the obvious is in danger of being overlooked, because it is obvious. The points I have chosen to touch were not chosen because they were the easiest to deal with, but because they were vital to the definition of the totem as we have understood it. I have not tried to discuss the question whether totemism is as large a factor in social and religious evolution as many have been inclined to think. ”

“ On the supposition of the primitive predominance of the rule of descent through the mother individualistic theories of the origin of totemism, with one exception, are out of the question—the totem is first chosen by a man, but children would have the totem not of the father but of the mother. ”

“ When once descent and inheritance are traced through males, the social side of totemism begins to break up. One way out is the Arunta way, where totems no longer designate kinships. In parts of America totems are Breaking up of totemism. simply fading into heraldry, or into magical societies, while the “gentes,” once totemic, have acquired new names, often local, as among the Sioux, or mere sobriquets, as among the Blackfeet. ”

“ Here also, as in the case of totemism, psychoanalysis advises us to believe the faithful, who call god father just as they called the totem their ancestor. If psychoanalysis deserves any consideration at all, then the share of the father in the idea of a god must be very important, quite aside from all the other origins and meanings of god upon which psychoanalysis can throw no light. ”

“ The word 'totem,' borrowed from a distant American tongue, proves by its very origin that our own cultural languages of Europe do not possess any word even approximately adequate to designate the peculiar character of this period. If we would define the concept of totemism as briefly as possible, it might perhaps be said to represent a circle of ideas within which the relation of animal to man is the reverse of that which obtains in present-day culture. ”

“ Among the many guesses at the original purpose of totemism, one has been that the primal intention of totem sets of human beings was to act as magical co-operative stores for supplying increased quantities of food to the tribe. ”

“ Plainly names of the totem sort are well suited to the convenience of savages, who converse much in gesture-language. Above all, the very nature of totemism shows that it took its present shape at a time when men, animals, and plants were conceived of as physically akin; when names were handed on through the female line; when exogamy was the rule of marriage, and when the family theoretically included all persons bearing the same family name, that is, all who claimed kindred with the same plant, animal, or object, whether the persons are really akin or not. ”

“ Indeed, it would be possible to argue that the Totem was a substitute for a human victim, and a whole new theory of Totemism might be evolved from that postulate, but it is wiser to observe such affinities without trying to derive one thing from another which commonly proves a snare and a delusion. It is sufficient to note that among 97fundamental human ideas is the belief that man grows like what he feeds upon. ”

“ On the other hand, totemism is a religio-social institution which is alien to our present feelings; it has long been abandoned and replaced by new forms. In the religions, morals, and customs of the civilized races of to-day it has left only slight traces, and even among those races where it is still retained, it has had to undergo great changes. ”

“ A man does not eat his tribe-animal, or clothe himself in its skin, and if he must kill it as hurtful, the lion for instance, he asks pardon of it, and purifies himself from the sacrilege. These few instances illustrate the generalization that totemism in its complete form belongs to the savage and early barbaric stages of culture, only partial remains or survivals of it having lasted into the civilized period. ”

“ According to this the mere impulses of hostility towards the father and the existence of the wish phantasy to kill and devour him may have sufficed to bring about the moral reaction which has created totemism and taboo. We should thus escape the necessity of tracing back the beginning of our cultural possession, of which we rightly are so proud, to a horrible crime which wounds all our feelings. ”

“ Further, the hypothesis accounts for one of the most characteristic features of totemism, namely, the intermingling in the same community of men and women of many different totem stocks. For each person's totem would be determined by what may be called an accident, that is, by the place where his mother happened to be, the occupation in which she was engaged, or the last food she had eaten at the time when she first felt the child in her womb ”

“ This restriction I make, not for the purpose of simplifying the problem of totemism by disregarding 'the individual totem,' 'the sex totem,' and so on, but because I understand that savages everywhere use one word for their hereditary kin totem, and other words for the plant or animal protectors of individuals, of magical societies, and so forth. The true totem is a plant or animal or other thing, the hereditary friend and ally—of the kin—but all plant or animal allies of individuals or of magical societies are not totems. ”

“ Heretofore totemism has been considered, broadly speaking, as the identification of themselves by some group of savages with a particular plant or animal or other manifestation of the powers of Nature, accompanied by a complete or partial taboo, so far as the group in question is concerned, of the animal or other object adopted as totem, and also by a rule prohibiting marriage within the group. ”