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But that all totemistic races are totemistic, because they all first metaphorically applied animal names to gods, and then forgot what they had meant, and worshipped these animals, sans phrase, appears to me to be, if not incredible, still greatly in want of evidence. Mr. Frazer and I
This view, a combination of reverence for ancestors and reverence for animals and plants, thus supplies two features of totemistic organization, but proof is lacking that it is the basis of this organization. If it be the determining consideration in some cases, there are many cases in which its influence is not apparent.
Similar totemic clan functions appear in the islands of Torres Straits, the Turtle and Dugong clans performing ceremonies to increase the supply of turtles and to attract dugongs. The tribes just mentioned are those in which the social organization is definitely totemistic. In New Guinea the totemic character of the performances appears to be doubtful.
Nor would the theory account for the absence of a taboo in the lower savagery, nor for the totemistic character of the lady, nor, least of all, for the peltry which is the most picturesque, if not the most important, incident in this group of tales. In fact, the only direct evidence for Liebrecht's contention is the variant of Wild Edric's legend alluded to by Map.
+528+. The fact that some of the least-advanced American tribes, particularly the Eskimo and the California tribes, show no signs of totemistic organization makes against the view that totemism was the initial form of human society, but its historical background is not known.
The Greek analogy to totemistic facts would be explained, either by asking for a definition of totemism, and not listening when it is given; or by maintaining that savage totemism is also a result of a world-wide malady of language, which, in a hundred tongues, produced the same confusions of thought, and consequently the same practices and institutions.
Moreover, I account for the myths of descent of Greek human families from gods disguised as dogs, ants, serpents, bulls, and swans, on the hypothesis that kindreds who originally, in totemistic fashion, traced to beasts sans phrase, later explained their own myth to themselves by saying that the paternal beast was only a god in disguise and en bonne fortune.
In accordance with what is said above, the term 'totemism' may be used to mean particularly a simple alliance between men and nonhuman things, and then more generally to mean such an alliance combined in whatever way, with one or more of the particular customs described in preceding paragraphs. +466+. Geographical survey of totemistic usages.
The Siberian Koryaks believe in a reincarnation of deceased human beings in animals, but their social organization is not determined by this belief. Marriage is not controlled by clan relations. +508+. Throughout savage Africa sacred animals, plants, and other objects play a great part in life, but generally without assuming a specifically totemistic rôle.
This is not a religion in which the individual counts anything for his own sake, any more than totemistic religion is; in both it is the community alone that serves the deity, in the one case, those acknowledging the same totem, in the second, those united by blood in the same family. In totemism the individual sacrifices himself to the tribe; here he is nothing apart from his family.
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