The Secret of the Totem

It was first put to me by Mr. N. W. Thomas, in Man, January 1904, No. 2.

208

Mr. Howitt affirms that the relative lateness of these classes, as sub-divisions of the phratries, is "now positively ascertained." (J. A. I., p. 143, Note. 1885.)

209

Spencer and Gillen, passim.

210

Curr, The Australian Race, ii. p. 165. Trubner, London, 1886.

211

Brough Smyth, i. pp. 423-424. Mr. Howitt renders Kilpara, "Crow," among the Wiimbaio, citing Mr. Bulmer, (Native Tribes of S. E. Australia, p. 429.)

212

Brough Smyth. i p. 86.

213

Danks, J. A. I., xviii. 3, pp. 281-282.

214

Brough Smyth, i. pp. 423, 424.

215

Cameron, J. A. I., xiv. p. 348. Native Tribes of S-E. Australia, p. 99.

216

Biliarinthu is a class name in the Worgaia tribe of Central Australia. (Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, p. 747.)

217

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 98-100.

218

Ibid., p. 102.

219

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 107.

220

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 91-94.

221

Ibid., p. 126.

222

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 40. 1880.

223

Ibid., p. 41.

224

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 125.

225

Ibid., pp. 121-124.

226

Ibid., p. 118.

227

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 116.

228

L'Année Sociologique, v. p. 106, Note. Social Origins, p. 56, Note.

229

The Arunta exception has been explained. Cf. Chapter IV.

230

Cf. Social Origins, pp. 55 – 57, in which the author fails to discover any mode by which the distribution could occur accidentally or automatically.

231

J. A. I., August 1888, p. 40.

232

Ibid., August 1888, p. 53.

233

N. W. Thomas, Man, January 1904, No. 2.

234

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 59, 60.

235

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. III.

236

Ibid., p. 118.

237

Totemism, p. 84. Cf. Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 41.

238

J. A. I., 1885, p. 143. Cf. Note 4.

239

J. A. I., xiii. pp. 336, 341.

240

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 116.

241

J. A. I., August 1890, p. 38.

242

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 36. J. A. I., ix. pp. 356, 357. Curr, i. p. 298. Austral. Assoc. Adv. Science, ii. pp. 653. 654. Journal Roy. Soc. N.S.W. vol. xxxii. p. 86. R. H. Matthews.

243

Roth, p. 50.

244

Mr. N. W. Thomas helped the chase of these names, without claiming any certainty for the "equations."

245

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 176. Citing Spencer and Gillen, p. 60.

246

Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 71, Note 2.

247

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 189-194.

248

Totemism, pp. 64-67.

249

Die Verwandschafts Organisationen der Australneger. Stuttgart, 1894.

250

Fortnightly Review, September 1905, p. 453.

251

Fortnightly Review, p. 455; cf. Spencer and Gillen, N. T. C. A., pp. 124 seq., p. 265.

252

Journal Anthrop. Institute, p. 502 (1882).

253

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 283, 284.

254

Fortnightly Review, pp. 455-458.

255

As to the Central Australian totems, see Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, Appendix B, pp. 767-773. Amongst the two hundred and one sorts of totems here enumerated, no less than a hundred and sixty-nine or a hundred and seventy are eaten.

256

When some years ago these Intichiuma ceremonies were first discovered on a great scale among the Central Australians, I was so struck by the importance of the discovery that I was inclined to see in these ceremonies the ultimate origin of totemism; and the discoverers themselves, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, were disposed to take the same view. See Baldwin Spencer, F. J. Gillen, and J. G. Frazer, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxviii. (1899), pp. 275-286; J. G. Frazer, "The Origin of Totemism," Fortnightly Review, April and May, 1899. Further reflection has led me to the conclusion that magical ceremonies for the increase or diminution of the totems are likely to be a later, though still very early, outgrowth of totemism rather than its original root. At the present time these magical ceremonies seem to constitute the main function of totemism in Central Australia. But this does not prove that they have done so from the beginning.

257

Fortnightly Review, p. 458.

258

Fortnightly Review, p. 463.

259

Howitt, Native Races of South-East Australia, p. 500.

260

Fortnightly Review, p. 452.

261

Fortnightly Review, p. 6l.

262

Compare Mr. N. W. Thomas's criticisms of Mr. Hill-Tout, in Man, May, June, July 1904.

263

We must not suppose that all American scholars agree with the views of the "American School." Major Powell used "totem" in from ten to fourteen different meanings.

264

Totémisme et Tabou à Madagascar. 1904.

265

A perfectly fictitious blood-tie, when a man Crow is born in Victoria, and a woman Crow on the Gulf of Carpentaria. – A. L.

266

Howitt. Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 144.

267

For full details see Messrs. McDougall and Hose, J. A. I., N.S., xxxi pp. 199-201.

268

Report of Nat. Mus., U.S., 1895, p. 336.

269

Mr. Hill-Tout differs from my understanding of Dr. Boas's remarks.

270

Frazer, Totemism, pp. 3-5. Dorman, pp. 231-234.

271

MS. of Mrs. Langloh Parker.

272

J. A. I., vol. xvi. pp. 44, 50, 350. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 144, 387, 388. MS. of Mrs. Langloh Parker.

273

Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, ix., xi. p. 72.

274

These are not totems, but "familiars," like the witch's cat or hare. – A. L.

275

The shaman's sons keep on the shaman business, with the paternal familiar. It is not, in my sense, a totem. – A. L.

276

My italics.

277

Brit. Ass., 1902. Report of Ethnol. Survey of Canada, pp. 51-52, 57. A fairy tale about the origin of a society of healing and magical influence. – A. L.

278

Mr. Hill-Tout says elsewhere: "Shamans only inherited their sulia" (he speaks of these personal totems or sulia) "from their fathers; other men had to acquire their own. But this applied only to the dream or vision totem or protective spirit." If a man "met his ghostly guardian in form of a bear," when hunting, he would take it as his "crest" and transmit it. This happened in the case of "Dr. George," who inherited his crest and guardian, the Bear, from his great-grandfather, who met a bear not in a dream but when hunting. (J. A. I., vol. xxxiv. pp. 326, 327.) Such inheritance, in an advanced American tribe of to-day, does not seem to me to corroborate the belief that totems among the many primitive tribes of Australia are the result of inheriting a personal crest or guardian spirit of a male ancestor.

279

Transactions, ix. p. 76.

280

Fifth Report on the Physical Characteristics, &c., of the N.W. Tribes of Canada, B.A.A.S., p. 24. London, 1889.

281

The myths, in fact, vary; the myth of descent from the totem also occurs even in these tribes. (Hartland, Folk Lore, xi. I, pp. 60-61. Boas, Nat. Mus. Report, 1895, pp. 331, 336, 375.) – A. L.

282

Cf. Mr. Hartland in Folk Lore, ut supra.

283

Frazer, Totemism, pp. 3-5.

284

For the full account of Siboko see Chapter II., supra.

285

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 71, 72.

286

Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 143, 144.