The Secret of the Totem

Totemism, as Dr. Pikler says, "has its original germ, not in religion, but in the practical everyday needs of men," the necessity for discriminating, by names, between group and group. "Totems, probably, in origin, had nothing really religious about them," I had written.157

Thus, given a set of local groups158 known by the names of Eagle Hawk, Crow, Wolf, Raven, or what not, the idea that these groups were intimately connected with the name-giving animals in each case was, in the long run, sure to occur to the savage thinker. On that assumed mystical connection, implied in the name, and suggested by the name, is laid the foundation of all early totemic practice. For the magical properties of the connection between the name and its bearer the reader has only to refer to Mr. Frazer's assortment of examples, already cited. We here give all that are needed for our purpose.

In Australia, each individual Arunta has a secret name, Aritna Churinga, "never uttered except on the most solemn occasions," "never to be spoken in the hearing of women, or of men, or of another group." To speak the secret name in these circumstances would be as impious "as the most flagrant case of sacrilege amongst white men."159

These ideas about the mystic quality of names are so familiar to all students, that I did not deem it necessary to dwell on them in Social Origins. But we should never take knowledge for granted, or rather, for every student does know the facts, we should never take it for granted that the knowledge will be applied. The facts prove, I repeat that, to the early mind names, and the things known by names, are in a mystic and transcendental connection of rapport. Other Australian examples of the secrecy of a man's name, and of the power of magically injuring him by knowledge of his name, are given by Mr. Howitt, Brough Smyth, Lumholtz, Bulmer, Dawson, and others. It would appear that this superstition as to names is later than the first giving of animal names to totem groups, and that totem names were not given to groups by the groups themselves (at least, were not given after the superstition about names came in), for to blazon their own group names abroad would be to give any enemy the power of injuring the group by his knowledge of its name. Groups, had they possessed the name-belief, would have carefully concealed their group names, if they could. There are a few American cases in which kins talk of their totems by periphrases, but every one knows the real names.

He who knew a group's name might make a magical use of his knowledge to injure the group. But the group or kin-names being already known to all concerned (having probably been given from without), when the full totemic belief arose it was far too late for groups to conceal the totem names, as an individual can and does keep his own private essential name secret. The totem animal of every group was known to all groups within a given radius. "It is a serious offence," writes Mr. Howitt, "for a man to kill the totem of another person,"160 that is, with injurious intentions towards the person.

Mr. Frazer at one time thought that the totem was perhaps originally the soul-box, or life-receptacle, of the totemist, and said: "How close must be the concealment, how impenetrable the reserve in which he hides the inner keep and citadel of his being." I could but reply, as Mr. Hill-Tout also replies, that every savage knew the secret, knew what beast was a man's totem. I added that I knew no cases of a custom of injuring a man by killing his totem, "to his intention," but that I was "haunted by the impression that I had met examples."161 Mr. Howitt, we see, mentions this kind of misdeed as punishable by native law. But it was too late, we repeat, to hide the totem names. Men now can only punish offenders who make a cruel magical use of their knowledge of an enemy's totem.

An individual, however, we must repeat, can and does keep his intimate essential personal name as dark as the secret name of the city of Rome was kept. "An individual," says Mr. Howitt, "has of course his own proper individual name, which, however, is often in abeyance, because of the disinclination to use it, or even to make it generally known, lest it might come into the knowledge and possession of some enemy, who thus having it might thereby 'sing' its owner – in other words, use it as an incantation."162

Thus, in Australia, the belief that names imply a mystic rapport between themselves and the persons who bear them is proved to be familiar, and it is acted upon by each individual who conceals his secret name.

This being so, when the members of human groups found themselves, as groups, all in possession of animal group-names, and had forgotten how they got the names (all known groups having long been named), it was quite inevitable that men, always speculative, should ask themselves, "What is the nature of this connection between us and the animals whose names we bear? It must be a connection of the closest and most important kind." This conclusion, I repeat, was inevitable, given the savage way of thinking about names. Will any anthropologist deny this assertion?

Probably the mere idea of a mystic connection between themselves and their name-giving animals set the groups upon certain superstitious acts in regard to these animals. But being men, and as such speculative, and expressing the results of their speculations in myths, they would not rest till they had evolved a myth as to the precise nature of the connection between themselves and their name-giving animals, the connection indicated by the name.

Now, men who had arrived at this point could not be so inconceivably unobservant as not to be aware of the blood connection between mother and children, indicated in the obvious facts of birth. A group may not have understood the facts of reproduction and procreation (as the Arunta are said not to understand them),163 but the facts of blood connection, and of the relation of the blood to the life, could escape no human beings.164 As savages undeniably do not draw the line between beasts and other things on one side, and men on the other, as we do, it was natural for them to suppose that the animal bearing the group name, and therefore solidaire with the group, was united with it, as the members of the group themselves were visibly united, namely, by the blood bond. The animal in myth is thus men's ancestor, or brother, or primal ancestral form. This belief would promote kindness to and regard for the animal.

Next, as soon as the animal-named groups evolved the universally diffused beliefs about the wakan or mana, or mystically sacred quality of the blood as the life, they would also develop the various totem tabus, such as not to kill the totem animal, not to shed its blood, and the idea that, by virtue of this tabu, a man must not marry a maid who was of one blood with him in the totem. Even without any blood tabu, the tabu on women of the same totem might arise. "An Oraon clan, whose totem is the Kujzar-tree, will not sit in its shade." So strong is the intertotemic avoidance.165 The belief grew to the pitch that a man must not "use" anything of his totem (χρῆσθαι γυναίκι), and thus totemic exogamy, with the sanction of the sacred totem, was established.166

Unessential to my system is the question, how the groups got animal names, as long as they got them and did not remember how they got them, and as long as the names, according to their way of thinking, indicated an essential and mystic rapport between each group and its name-giving animal. No more than these three things – a group animal-name of unknown origin; belief in a transcendental connection between all bearers, human and bestial, of the same name; and belief in the blood superstitions – was needed to give rise to all the totemic creeds and practices, including exogamy.

Now, we can prove that the origin of the totem names of savage groups is unknown to the savages, because they have invented many various myths to account for the origin of the names. If they knew, they would not have invented such myths. That, by their way of thinking, the name denotes a transcendental connection, which must be exploited, between themselves and their name-giving animals we have proved.

In Social Origins I ventured a guess as to how the group names first arose, namely, in sobriquets given by group to group.167 I showed that in France, England, the Orkneys, and I may now add Guernsey, and I believe Crete, villagers are known by animal names or sobriquets, as in France – Cows, Lizards, Pigeons, Frogs, Dogs; in Orkney – Starlings, Oysters, Crabs, Seals, Auks, Cod, and so forth. I also gave the names of ancient Hebrew villages, recorded in the Book of Judges, such as Lions, Jackals, Hornets, Stags, Gazelles, Wild Asses, Foxes, Hyænas, Cows, Lizards, Scorpions, and so forth. I also proved that in rural England, and in the Sioux tribe of Red Indians, rapidly ceasing to be totemic, the group sobriquets were usually "Eaters of" this or that animal, or (where totemism survived among the Sioux) "not Eaters of" this or that.168 I thus established the prevalence in human nature, among peasants and barbarians, of giving animal group-sobriquets. "In Cornwall," writes an informant (Miss Alleyne), "it seems as if the inhabitants do not care to talk about these things for some reason or another," and "the names are believed to be very ancient." When once attention is drawn to this curious subject, probably more examples will be discovered.

I thus demonstrated (and I know no earlier statement of the fact) the existence in the European class least modified by education of the tendency to give such animal group-sobriquets. The same principle even now makes personal names derived from animals most common among individuals in savage countries, the animal name usually standing, not alone, but qualified, as Wolf the Unwashed, in the Saga; Sitting Bull, and so on. As we cannot find a race just becoming totemic, we cannot, of course, prove that their group animal-names were given thus from without, but the process is undeniably a vera causa, and does operate as we show.

As to this suggestion about the sources of the animal names borne by the groups, Dr. Durkheim remarks that it is "conjectural."169 Emphatically it is, like the Doctor's own theories, nor can any theory on this matter be other than guess-work. But we do not escape from the difficulty by merely saying that the groups "adopted" animal names for themselves; for that also is a mere conjecture. Perhaps they did, but why? Is it not clear that, given a number of adjacent groups, each one group has far more need of names for its neighbours than of a name for itself? "We" are "we"; all the rest of mankind are "wild blacks," "barbarians," "outsiders." But there are a score of sets of outsiders, and "we," "The Men," need names for each and every one of them. "We" are "The Men," but the nineteen other groups are also "The Men" – in their own opinion. To us they are something else ("they" are not "we"), and we are something else to them; we are not they; we all need differentiation, and we and they, by giving names to outsiders, differentiate each other. The names arose from a primitive necessity felt in everyday life.

That such sobriquets, given from without, may come to be accepted, and even gloried in, has been doubted, but we see the fact demonstrated in such modern cases as "the sect called Christians" (so called from without), and in Les Gueux, Huguenots, Whigs, Tories, Cavaliers, Cameronians ("that nickname," cries Patrick Walker (1720), "why do they not call them Cargillites, if they will give them a nickname?")170 I later prove that two ancient and famous Highland clans have, from time immemorial, borne clan names which are derisive nicknames. Several examples of party or local nicknames, given, accepted, and rejoiced in, have been sent to me from North Carolina.

Another example, much to the point, may be offered. The "nations," that is, aggregates of friendly tribes, in Australia, let us say the Kamilaroi, are usually known by names derived from their word for "No," such as Kamil (Kamilaroi), Wira (Wirajuri), Wonghi (Wonghi tribe), Kabi (Kabi tribe). Can any one suppose that these names were given from within? Clearly they were given from without and accepted from within. One of the Wonghi or of the Wiraidjuri or Kamilaroi tribe is "proud of the title." Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write, "It is possible that the names of the tribes were originally applied to them by outsiders, and were subsequently adopted by the members of the tribes themselves, but the evidence is scanty and inconclusive."171 There can hardly be any evidence but what we know of human nature. Do the French call themselves Oui Oui? Not much I but the natives of New Caledonia call them Oui Oui.172

Moreover, to return to totem names, savage groups would have no reason for resenting, as derisive, animal names given from without. Considering the universal savage belief in the mystic wisdom and wakan, or power, of animals, there was no kind of objection among savages to being known by animal group-names. I repeat that the names were rather honour-giving than derisive. This has not been understood by my critics. They have said that among European villages, and among the Sioux of to-day, group nicknames are recognised, but not gloried in or even accepted meekly. My answer is obvious. Our people have not the savage ideas about animals.

Here it may be proper to reply to this objection as urged by Mr. Hill-Tout. That scholar might seem, in one passage of his essay on "Totemism: Its Origin and Import," to agree fully with these ideas of mine. He says, "To adopt or receive the name of an animal or plant, or other object, was, in the mind of the savage, to be endowed with the essence or spirit of that object, to be under its protection, to become one with it in a very special and mysterious sense." That is exactly my own opinion. The very early groups received animal names, I suggest, and when they had forgotten how they received them, believed themselves, as Mr. Hill-Tout says they naturally would do, to be "under the protection" of their name-giving animals, "and one with them in a very special and mysterious sense." Mr. Hill-Tout proceeds to give many examples of the process from America.173

It might appear, then, that Mr. Hill-Tout accepts my theory, namely, that group names, of forgotten origin, are the germs of totemism. But he rejects it, partly, no doubt, because he owns a different theory. His reasons for objecting, however, as offered, are that, while I prove that modern villages give each other collective animal names, I do not prove that the villagers – styled Grubs, Mice, Geese, Crows, and so on – accept and rejoice in these names, as totemists rejoice in being Grubs, Mice, Crows, and so forth. But I never said that the modern villagers delighted in being called Mice or Cuckoos! They very much resent such appellations. The group names of modern villagers were cited merely to prove that the habit of giving such collective names survives in Folk Lore, not to prove that modern villagers accept them gladly. The reason why they resent them is that our country folk are not savages, and have not the beliefs about the mystic force of names and the respect for animals which Mr. Hill-Tout justly ascribes to savages.

A native of Dingley Dell may call all natives of Muggleton "Potato-grubs," and the Muggleton people, from time immemorial, may have called the Dingley Dell folk "Rooks." But, not being savages, they do not think – as Mr. Hill-Tout's savages do – that "to receive the name of an animal is to be under its protection, to become one with it in a very special and mysterious sense," and they do not, like savages, think nobly of grubs and rooks. The distinction is obvious, except to critics. Mr. Hill-Tout thus accepts my premises as regards savages and their ideas about names, but rejects my conclusion, because modern villagers do not reason like savages! As to villagers, my evidence was only meant to show the wide diffusion, from ancient Israel to the Orkneys, of the habit of giving animal names to village groups. For evidence of the effect which that habit would have on savages, I have now cited Mr. Hill-Tout himself. He has merely misunderstood a very plain argument,174 which he advanced as representing his own opinion (pp. 64-66). But then Mr. Hill-Tout has a counter theory.

Is my argument intelligible? A modern villager resents the bawling out of "Mouse" as he passes, Mouse being the collective nickname of his village, because he does not think nobly of Mice. The savage does think nobly of all animals, and so has no reason for resenting, but rather for glorying in, his totem name, whether Mouse or Lion. These facts were plainly asserted in Social Origins, p. 169, to no avail.

Mr. Howitt, in his turn, does not approve of my idea, thus stated by him, that "the plant and animal names would be impressed upon each group from without, and some of them would stick, would be stereotyped, and each group would come to answer to its nickname." He replies —

"To me, judging of the possible feelings of the ancestors of the Australians by their descendants of the present time, it seems most improbable that any such nicknames would have been adopted and have given rise to totemism, nor do I know of a single instance in which such names have been adopted."175 Mr. Howitt, of course, could not possibly find kinships now adopting animal and other such names given from without, because all kinships where totemism exists have got such names already, and with the names a sacred body of customs. But does he suppose that the many local tribes calling themselves by their word for "No" (as Kabi, Kamil, Wonghi, and so on), originally gave these names to themselves, saying, "We are the people who, when we mean 'No,' say 'Wonghi'"? That seems to me hardly credible! Much more probably tribes who used Kamil or Kabi for "No" gave the name of Wonghi to a tribe who used Wonghi in place of their Kamil or Kabi. In that case the tribes, as tribes, have adopted names given from without.

Again, I consider that the feelings of that noble savage, the Red Indian, are at least as sensitive to insult as those of Mr. Howitt's blacks. Now it so happens that the Blackfoot Indians of North America, who apparently have passed out of totemism, have "gentes, a gens being a body of consanguineal kinsmen in the male line," writes Mr. G. B. Grinnell.176 These clans, no longer totemic, needed names, and some of their names, at least, are most insulting nicknames. Thus we have Naked Dogs, Skunks, They Don't Laugh, Buffalo Dung, All Crazy Dogs, Fat Roasters, and – Liars! No men ever gave such names to their own community. In a diagram of the arrangement of these clans in camp, made about 1850, we find the gentes of the Pi-kun'-I under such pretty titles as we have given.177

To return from America to Australia, the Narrinyeri tribe, like the Sioux and Blackfeet, have reckoning of descent in the male line, and, like the Sioux, have local settlements (called "clans" by Mr. Howitt), and these local settlements have names. Does Mr. Howitt think it likely that one such "clan" called itself "Where shall we go?" and another called itself "Gone over there"?178 These look to me like names given by other groups. Tribes, local groups ("clans"), and totem kins having names already, I cannot expect to show Mr. Howitt the names of such sets of people in the act of being given from without and accepted. But, as regards individuals, they "often have what may be called a nickname, arising from some strongly marked feature in their figures, or from fancied resemblance to some animal or plant."[38] The individuals "answer to" such nicknames, I suppose, but they cannot evolve, in a lifetime, respect for the plant or animal that yields the nickname, because they cannot forget how they come to bear it.

Obvious at a glance as such replies to such objections are, it seems that they have not occurred to the objectors.

If we want to discover clans adopting and glorying in names which are certainly, in origin, derisive nicknames, we find Clan Diarmaid, whose name, Campbell, means "Wry Mouth,"179 and Clan Cameron, whose name means "Crooked Nose."180 Moreover, South African tribes believe that tribal siboko, as Baboon and Alligator, may, and did, arise out of nicknames; for, as we have seen, their myths assert that nicknames are the origin of such tribal and now honourable names. I cannot prove, of course, that the process of adopting a name given from without occurred among prehistoric men, but I have demonstrated that, among all sorts and conditions of men in our experience, the process is a vera causa.

Dismissing my theory, Mr. Howitt, in place of it, "could more easily imagine that these early savages might, through dreams, have developed the idea of relationship with animals, or even with plants."181 They might; a man, as in the case given, might dream of a lace lizard, and believe that he was one. He might even be named, as an individual, "Lace Lizard," but that does not help us. Totem names, as Mr. Fison insists, are, and always were, group names. But Mr. Howitt "gets no forrarder," if he means that the children of his Lace Lizard become a totem kin of Lace Lizards, for under a system of female descent the man's children would not be Lace Lizards. Does Mr. Howitt know of a single instance in a tribe with female kin where the children of a man who, on dream evidence, believed himself to be a Kangaroo, were styled Kangaroos? He must adopt the line of saying that, while totemism was being evolved, women did the dreaming of being Hakea flowers, Witchetty Grubs, Kangaroos, Emus, and so forth, and bequeathed the names to their children. But he will not find that process going on in any known instance, I fear.

The processes of my hypothesis, though necessarily conjectural, are at least veræ causæ, are in human nature, as we know it. A curious new example of totems, certainly based on sobriquets not derived from animals, occurs among the Warramanga tribe of Central Australia. One totem kin is merely called "The Men" (Kati), the name which, in dozens of cases, a tribe gives to itself. Another totem kin is called "The Laughing Boys" (Thaballa), a name which is obviously a nickname, and not given from within. The Thaballa have found it necessary to evolve a myth about descent from a giggling boy and his giggling playmates, and to practise magic for their behoof, as they are supposed not to be dead. All this has clearly been done by the Laughing Boy totem kin merely to keep themselves in line with other totem kins named from lower animal form.182 This totem name can have been nothing but a group nickname.183

I have next to explain the nature of the superstitious regard paid by totemists to their name-giving animals.

My guess, says Dr. Durkheim, is "difficult for those who know the religious character of the totem, the cult of which it is our object to explain. How could a sobriquet become the centre of a regular religious system?"

Dr. Durkheim calls the system "religious," and adds that I "leave on one side this religious aspect of totemism: but to do so is to leave on one side the essential factor in the phenomenon to be explained."

Now, as a matter of fact, I left no element of Australian totemism "on one side." I mentioned every totemic tabu and magical practice that was known to me. But I do not (it is really a mere question of words) describe the beliefs as "religious." Dr. Durkheim does; he describes them, as we saw, almost in the terms of the Creed of St. Athanasius. But I find, in Australia, no case of such religious usages as praying to, or feeding, or burying, the totem. Such really "religious" rites are performed, in Samoa, for example, where an animal, once probably a totem, is now regarded as the shrine or vehicle of an ancestral spirit, who has become a kind of god,184 and, in Egypt, the animal gods had once, it seems all but certain, been totems. In Australia, to be sure, two totems, Eagle Hawk and Crow, were creators, in some myths. So far, totemic conceptions may be called "religious" conceptions, more or less, and if Dr. Durkheim likes to call totems "gods," as he does, he has a right to do so. The difference here, then, is one of terminology.