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Updated: May 26, 2025
But if the savages tell us about totems, are they not then 'casual native informants'? If a Maori tells you, as he does, of traditional hymns containing ideas worthy of Heraclitus, is that quite trustworthy; whereas, if he tells you about his idols and taboos, that cannot possibly be worthy of attention? Perception of the Infinite
They leave behind only the canoe, the deer horns, stone-polishers, sharpened bones, the lower stone of a quern, and the now obsolete, or purely folk-loreish stone "amulets," or "pendants," and the figurines, which to call "idols" is unscientific, while to call them "totems" is to display "facetious and rejoicing ignorance." Dr. Munro merely quotes this foolish use of the term totem by others.
Another reason for the institution of these totems, may be found in their influence on the social relations of the tribe, in softening private revenge, and preserving peace.
'Boyjerh' relations, as those on the father's side are called, are not so important as on the mother's side, but are still recognised. Now for the great Dhe, or totem system, by some called Mah, but Dhe, is the more correct. Dinewan, or emu, is a totem, and has amongst its multiplex totems' or 'sub-totems' Bohrah, the kangaroo, is another totem, and is considered somewhat akin to Dinewan.
We cannot prove that the worship of one God as supreme did not coexist with a sort of worship of inferior deities or ministering spirits. Almost as a rule, the worship of ancestors, or spirits, or rulers, or the powers of nature, or even totems and fetishes has been rendered as subordinate to the worship of the one supreme deity who created and upholds all things.
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.
A savage inherits his totem name, usually through the mother's side. A man is born a wolf of the Delawares, his totem is the wolf, he cannot help himself. These are quite separate from totems, as Mr. Max Muller also points out. Of totems, I, for one, must always write in the sense of Mr. McLennan, who introduced totemism to science.
In the totem scheme of other islands and continental groups all the women of his mother's totem were taboo to a man, though their relationship might be remote. Yet as husband and wife had different totems, and children took their mothers' totems, a man might in rare instances, even with this barrier, wed his own daughter. This has happened in Buka and in North Bougainville.
In their legends, in which the migrations of their ancestors are recounted, the traditionists often mention the fact that their ancestors left their totem signatures at certain points in their wanderings. The Patki people say that you will find on the rocks of Palatkwabi, the "Red Land of the South" from which they came, totems of the rain-cloud, sun, crane, parrot, etc.
Frazer's remarks on individual totems in his book on totemism: "An Australian seems usually to get his individual totem by dreaming that he has been transformed into an animal of that species." "In America the individual totem is usually the first animal of which a youth dreams during the long and generally solitary fast which American Indians observe at puberty."
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