by a representative of one bratstva sucking blood from the vein of the right wrist of a representative of the other bratstva, whereby all the members of the one clan become blood-brothers to all the members of the other. Mohammedan women do not veil themselves in the presence of such bloodbrothers, even if Christians, any more than they would before their other blood-relations. This last instance is important, because it faithfully preserves the primitive view that the blood-brotherhood thus established is not a relationship personal to the two parties alone, but extends to the whole of each clan my brother is, or becomes, the brother of all my brethren; the blood which flows in the veins of either party to the blood-covenant flows in the veins of all his kin. Thus in this the most primitive form of society, men were divided into clans or tribes; these tribes were usually hostile X to one another, but might by means of the blood-covenant make alliance with one another. The individual only existed as long as he was protected by his clan; he can scarcely be said to have had an individual existence, so crushing was the solidarity which bound kinsmen together under the pressure of the clan's struggle for existence with other clans. If the individual kinsman slew a stranger, the whole kin were responsible; if he was slain by a stranger, they all required satisfaction. If the individual kinsman made a bloodcovenant with a stranger, the whole of each tribe was bound thereby. It was inevitable, therefore, that man, who imagined all things, animate or inanimate, to think and act and feel like himself, should imagine that the societies of these other spirits was organised like the only society of which he had any knowledge, namely, that form of human society into which he himself was born. In so doing, primitive man was but anticipating the Homeric Greek who modelled the society of Olympus on an earthly pattern. Now, the things by which man is surrounded are as a matter of fact divided into natural kinds, genera and species; and it is small wonder if man detected a resemblance between the natural kinds of animals, plants, etc., and the kins or clans into which human society 1 Am Urquell, i. 196. was divided. That he actually did consider these classes of objects as organisations of the same kind as human clans, is shown by the fact that savages have blood-feuds with these natural kinds as they would with clans of human beings. Amongst the Kookies, a man's whole tribe takes vengeance if one of them is killed by an animal or any wild beast; and if a tree has fallen on him and killed him, it is cut up by them into the finest splinters, which are scattered to the winds:1 it is not essential that the very animal should be killed, but only that it should be one of the same species. On the other hand, it is believed that the whole of the animal's clan will take up the blood-feud on behalf of any one of them against men. The Lapps and Ostiaks dread a blood-feud with the Bear clan, and accordingly, before killing a bear, they try to persuade him to fall a willing sacrifice, by explaining to him at length the exalted and flattering uses to which his flesh, fat, and pelt will be put.3 The Arabs in the same way must apologise to an animal before killing it." "It is generally believed by the natives of Madagascar, that the crocodile never, except to avenge an injury, destroys innocent persons "; an aged native about to cross a river "addressed himself to the crocodile, urging him to do him no injury, because he had never done him (the crocodile) any; and assuring him that he had never engaged in war against any of his species . . at the same time adding, that if he came to attack him, vengeance, sooner or later, would follow; and that if he devoured him, all his relatives and all his race would declare war against him." The Indians of Guiana endeavour also to avert blood-feuds with animals. "Before leaving a temporary camp in the forest, where they have killed a tapir and dried the meat on a babracot, Indians invariably destroy this babracot, saying that should a tapir, passing that way, find traces of the slaughter of one of his kind, he would come by night on the next occasion when Indians slept at that place, and, taking a man, would 1 Bastian, Der Mensch, iii. 25. 5 ... 2 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 286, referring to As. Res. vii. 189. 3 Bastian, Der Mensch, iii. 5. Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 53. 4 Ibid. 6. 6 Ibid, 57, quoting "Monsieur de V., whose voyage to Madagascar was published in 1722." "1 babracot him in revenge." It is not, therefore, surprising if man can have blood-feuds with animal clans as he has with human, that he should seek to establish an alliance with one of these kinds of beings, in the same way and on the same principle as with one of the various human kins with which he came in contact. It is to be presumed that in the choice of an ally he would prefer the kind which he believed to possess supernatural powers, or if several possessed such powers, then the kind or species which possessed the greatest power. In any case, however, it was not, and from the nature of the circumstances could not be, an individual supernatural being with which he sought alliance, but a class or kind of beings with supernatural powers. But this is precisely a totem. "A totem is never an isolated individual, but always a class of objects, generally a species of animals or of plants, more rarely a class of inanimate natural objects, very rarely a class of artificial objects." "It is not merely an individual, but the species that is reverenced." 3 Thus, if the owl be a totem, as in Samoa, and an owl was found dead, "this was not the death of the god: he was supposed to be yet alive and incarnate in all the owls in existence."4 But just as it was impossible in the then stage of society to make an alliance with a single member of another kin or kind, and therefore it was always the species and never an individual merely that became a totem, so it was impossible for the compact to be made between the totem species and one individual man it was also and necessarily a covenant. between the clan and the class of objects chosen as a totem. In other words, from the beginning religion was not an affair which concerned the individual only, but one which demanded the co-operation of the whole community; and a religious community was the earliest form of society. As a clan consists of those in whose veins the same blood runs, and who are therefore one flesh, the totem animal is spoken of, by the Mount Gambier tribe for instance, as being their tumanang, i.e. their flesh, and is treated in all respects. as a clansman. Now, in the primitive, nomad stage, the most sacred and inviolable duty is to respect the blood of the kin: 2 Frazer, Totemism, 2. Turner, Samoa, 21. 1 Im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, 352. 3 Ibid. 15. a clan in which the kinsmen should shed each other's blood would speedily perish; only those clans could survive in the struggle for existence which rigorously observed this fundamental duty. All blood, even of animals, was, as we have seen, taboo, but the blood of a kinsman was even more, it was sacred the restriction, by this change in its content, is raised from the taboo-level to the plane of morality. In times when it became possible or customary to accept compensation, wer-geld, for the slaying of a clansman, in lieu of the blood. which could alone originally atone for his death, no compensation could be accepted for the killing of a clansman by a clansman. It was the unpardonable offence; the Erinyes of a dead kinsman were implacable. In this case, and this case alone, killing was murder. Now the totem animal is a clansman, and its life therefore is sacred: a man never kills his totem; to do so would be murder. Thus the Osages "abstained from hunting the beaver, 'because in killing that animal they killed a brother of the Osages.' Abstaining from killing his totem, he also endeavours to protect it from being killed by others; and if he fails to do so, then, amongst the Indians of Columbia, "he will demand compensation," as he would for the death of any other kinsman. The dead totem animal is mourned for and buried with the same ceremonies as a clansman. In Samoa, "if a man found a dead owl by the roadside, and if that happened to be the incarnation of his village god, he would sit down and weep over it and beat his forehead with stones till the blood flowed." 3 Of all food, the totem is most taboo; death and sicknesses of various kinds are believed to be the consequence, if a man eats, even unwittingly, of his totem animal or plant. Like other things taboo, the totem as food is dangerous even to see; and it is well generally to avoid mentioning its name. " 1 » 2 As the totem animal becomes a member of the human clan, so the human clansman becomes a member of the animal's clan. This he indicates "by dressing in the skin or other part of the totem animal, arranging his hair and mutilating his body so as to resemble the totem." 4 Thus, among the Thlinkets, at a funeral feast a relative of the 1 Frazer, 8, quoting Lewis and Clark, i. 12. 2 Frazer, 8. • Frazer, 26. deceased appears clad in the dress that represents the totem, and is welcomed by the assembly with the ery of the animal.1 Amongst the Iowas, "the Buffalo clan wear two locks of hair in imitation of horns." 2 Various peoples chip their teeth so that they resemble the teeth of cats, crocodiles, or other animals. It is at the great crises of life that the totem dress is especially worn, for thus the wearer is placed under the close protection of the totem. The child, which at birth is taboo, and as such is outside the community just as much as a person who has been tabooed or outlawed, is received into the savage church," 3 by being dressed or painted to resemble the tribal totem. The skin of the sheep, on which, at a Roman marriage, the bride and bridegroom were made to sit, may be a relic of totemism. At death, the clansman was supposed to join his totem and to assume the totem animal's form-this was intimated sometimes by a ceremony such as that of the Thlinkets described above, and sometimes by the grave-post or tombstone. "In Armenia proper the oldest grave-stones are cut into the shape of a crouching ram with the inscription on the side of the body."5 In Luzon a deceased chieftain is laid in a monument shaped like a buffalo or a pig; and the Negritos bury in a tomb roughly shaped to resemble an ox or a boar.7 Again, the ceremonies which amongst savage races generally accompany "the introduction of the young to complete manhood or womanhood, and to full participation in the savage church," which ceremonies "correspond, in short, to confirmation," are a part of totemism. Their design, or the leading part of their design, is to communicate to him the blood of the totem and the clan, and thus to unite him a second time and more closely to the community in its religious aspect. In the Dieyerie tribe of Australians the ceremony is thus described the boy is taken and his arm bound to the arm of an old man; the latter's vein is opened above the elbow |