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Updated: August 28, 2024
But, for the native mind, the difference evidently goes far deeper than that. In some parts of Australia there are actually sex-totems, signifying that each sex is all-one-flesh, a mystic corporation.
Again, this explanation of the clan totem harmonises with the supposed effect of killing one of the totem species. "One day one of the blacks killed a crow. Here the killing of the crow caused the death of a man of the Crow clan, exactly as, in the case of the sex-totems, the killing of a bat causes the death of a Bat-man or the killing of an owl causes the death of an Owl-woman.
We cannot expect to find traces of the prohibition to marry a woman of the same totem. In Rome we do find traces of exogamy, as among totemists. Mr. Frazer on Origin of Totemism Mr. Frazer has introduced the term 'sex-totems, in application to Australia. This is connected with his theory of the Origin of Totemism. I cannot quite approve of the term sex-totems.
Thus, to speak of 'sex-totems, or to call the protecting animal of each individual a 'totem, is, I fear, to bring in confusion, and to justify Mr. Max Muller's hard opinion that 'totemism' is ill-defined. For myself, I use the term in the strict sense which I have given, and in no other. Mr. McLennan did not profess, as we saw, to know the origin of totems.
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