the Fox” revealed the ancient and scattered materials out of which that
wonderful satire was woven, and there is no feature of the story which
reappears more often in Eastern and Western folk-lore than that cunning of
the animal which has been for the lampooner and the satirist the type of
self-seeking monk and ecclesiastic. When Chanticleer proudly takes an
airing with his family, he meets master Reynard, who tells him he has
become a “religious,” and shows him his beads, and his missal, and his
hair shirt, adding, in a voice “that was childlike and bland,” that he had
vowed never to eat flesh. Then he went off singing his Credo, and slunk
behind a hawthorn. Chanticleer, thus thrown off his guard, continues his
airing, and the astute hypocrite, darting from his ambush, seizes the
plump hen Coppel. So in Indian folk-tale a wolf living near the Ganges is
cut off from food by the surrounding water. He decides to keep holy day,
and the god Sakka, knowing his lupine weakness, resolves to have some fun
with him, and turns himself into a wild goat “Aha!” says the wolf, “I’ll
keep the fast another day,” and springing up he tried to seize the goat,
who skipped about so that he could not be taken. So Lupus gives it up, and
says as his solatium: “After all, I’ve not broken my vow.”
The Chinese have a story of a tiger who desired to eat a fox, but the
latter claimed exemption as being superior to the other animals, adding
that if the tiger doubted his word he could easily judge for himself. So
the two set forth, and, of course, every animal fled at sight of the
tiger, who, too stupid to see how he had been gulled, conceived high
respect for the fox, and spared his life.
Sometimes the tables are turned. Chanticleer gets his head out of
Reynard’s mouth by making him answer the farmer, and in the valuable
collection of Hottentot tales which the late Dr. Bleek, with some warrant,
called _Reynard in South Africa_, the cock makes the jackal say his
prayers, and flies off while the outwitted beast folds his hands and shuts
his eyes.
But further quotations must be resisted; enough if it is made clearer that
the beast-fable is the lineal descendant of barbaric conceptions of a life
shared in common by man and brute, and another link thus added to the
lengthening chain of the continuity of human history.
§ VI.
TOTEMISM: BELIEF IN DESCENT FROM ANIMAL OR PLANT.
In addition to the beliefs in the transformation of men into animals and
in the transmigration of souls into the bodies of animals, we find among
barbarous peoples a belief which is probably the parent of one and
certainly nearly related to both, namely, in descent from the animal or
plant, more often the former, whose name they bear. Its connection with
transmigration is seen in the belief of the Moquis of Arizona, that after
death they live in the form of their totemic animal, those of the deer
family becoming deer, and so on through the several gentes. The belief
survives in its most primitive and vivid forms among two races, the
aborigines of Australia and the North American Indians. The word
“totemism,” given to it both in its religious and social aspects, is
derived from the Algonquin “dodaim” or “dodhaim,” meaning “clanmark.”
Among the Australians the word “kobong,” meaning “friend” or “protector,”
is the generic term for the animal or plant by which they are known. It is
somewhat akin in significance to the Indian words “manitou,” “oki,” etc.,
comprehending “the manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no
sense of personal unity,” which are commonly translated by the misleading
word “medicine;” hence “medicine-men.”
The family name, or second name borne by all the tribes in lineal descent,
and which corresponds to our surname, _i.e._ _super nomen_, or
“over-name,” is derived from names of beasts, birds, plants, etc., around
which traditions of their transformation into men linger. Sir George
Grey[44] says that there is a mysterious connection between a native and
his kobong. It is his protecting angel, like the “daimôn” of Socrates,
like the “genius” of the early Italian. “If it is an animal, he will not
kill one of the species to which it belongs, should he find it asleep, and
he always kills it reluctantly and never without affording it a chance of
escape. The family belief is that some one individual of the species is
their dearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime,” as, in Hindu
belief, when a Rajah was said to have entered at death into the body of a
fish, a “close time” was at once decreed. Among the Indian tribes we find
well-nigh the whole fauna and flora represented, their totems being the
Bear, Turtle, Deer, Snake, Eagle, Pike, Corn, Tobacco, etc. Like the
Australians, these tribes regarded themselves as being of the breed of
their particular animal-totem, and avoided hunting, slaying, and eating
(of which more presently) the creature under whose form the ancestor was
thought to be manifest. The Chippeways carried their respect even farther.
Deriving their origin from the dog, they at one time refrained from
employing their supposed canine ancestors in dragging their sledges. The
Bechuana and other people of South Africa will avoid eating their
tribe-animal or wearing its skin. The same prohibitions are found among
tribes in Northern Asia, and the Vogulitzi of Siberia, when they have
killed a bear, address it formally, maintaining “that the blame is to be
laid on the arrows and iron, which were made and forged by the Russians!”
Among the Delawares the Tortoise gens claimed supremacy over the others,
because their ancestor, who had become a fabled monster in their
mythology, bore their world on his back. The California Indians are in
interesting agreement with Lord Monboddo when, in claiming descent from
the prairie wolf, they account for the loss of their tails by the habit of
sitting, which, in course of time, wore them down to the stump! The
Kickapoos say their ancestors had tails, and that when they lost them the
“impudent fox sent every morning to ask how their tails were, and the bear
shook his fat sides at the joke.” The Patagonians are said to have a
number of animal deities, creators of the several tribes, some being of
the caste of the guanaco and others of the ostrich. In short, the group of
beliefs and practices found among races in the lower stages of culture
point to a widespread common attitude towards the mystery of life around
them. In speaking of totemism among the Red races Dr. Brinton thinks that
the free use of animate symbols to express abstract ideas, which he finds
so frequent, is the source of a confusion which has led to their claiming
literal descent from wild beasts. But the barbaric mind bristles with
contradictions and mutually destructive conceptions; nothing is too
wonderful, too _bizarre_, for its acceptance, and the belief in actual
animal descent is not the most remarkable or far-fetched among the
articles of its creed.
The subject of totemism is full of interest both on its religious and
social side:--
On its religious side it has given rise, or, if this be not conceded,
impetus, to that worship of animals which assuredly had its source in the
attribution of mysterious power through some spirit within them, making
them deity incarnate.
On its social side it has led to prohibitions which are inwoven among the
customs and prejudices of civilised communities. But, before speaking of
these prohibitions, the barbaric mode of reckoning descent should be
noticed.
The family name borne by most Australian tribes is perpetuated by the
children, whether boys or girls, taking their mother’s name. Precisely the
same custom is found among some American Indians, the children of both
sexes being of the mother’s clan. Among the Moquis of Arizona all the
members of each gens trace descent from a common ancestor; they are
regarded as brothers and sisters.[45] Now, the family, as we define it,
does not exist in savage communities, nor, as Mr. McLennan says in his
very remarkable work on _Primitive Marriage_, had “the earliest human
groups any idea of kinship, ... the physical root of which could be
discerned only through observation and reflection.” Where the relations
of the sexes were confused and promiscuous, the oldest system in which the
idea of blood-ties was expressed was a system of kinship through the
mother. The habits of the “much-married” primitive men made mistake about
any one’s mother less likely than mistake about his father; and, if in
civilised times it is, as the saying goes, a wise child that knows its own
father, he was, in barbarous times, a wise father who knew his own child.
Examples tracing the kinship through females, father and offspring being
never of the same clan, abound in both ancient and modern authorities, and
perhaps the most amusing one that can be given is found in Dr. Morgan’s
_Systems of Consanguinity_. He says that the “natives of the province of
Keang-se are celebrated among the natives of the other Chinese provinces
for the mode or form used by them in address, namely, ‘Laon peaon,’ which,
freely translated, means, ‘Oh, you old fellow, brother mine by some of the
ramifications of female relationship!’”[46]
The prohibitions arising out of or confirmed by totemism are two: 1.
Against intermarriage between those of the same name or crest. 2. Against
the eating of the totem by any member of the tribe called after it.
1. Among both Australians and Indians a man is forbidden to marry in his
own clan, _i.e._ any woman of his own surname or badge, no matter where
she was born or however distantly related to him. The Navajoes of Arizona
say that if they married in their own clan “their bones would dry up and
they would die.”
Were this practice of “Exogamy,” as marriage outside the totem-kin is
called, limited to one or two places, it might be classed among
exceptional local customs based on a tradition, say, of some heated
blood-feud between the tribes. But its prevalence among savage or
semi-savage races all the world over points to reasons the nature of which
is still a _crux_ to the anthropologists. The late Mr. McLennan, whose
opinion on such a matter is entitled to the most weight, connects it with
the custom of female infanticide, which, rendering women scarce, led at
once to polyandry, or one female to several males, within the tribe, and
to the capturing of women from other tribes. This last-named practice
strengthens Mr. McLennan’s theory. He cites numerous instances from past
and present barbarous races, and traces its embodiment in formal code
until we come to the mock relics of the custom in modern times, as, for
example, the harmless “survival” in bride-lifting, that is, stealing, as
in the word “cattle-lifting.”
Connected with this custom is the equally prevailing one which forbids
intercourse between relations, as especially between a couple and their
fathers and mothers-in-law, and which also forbids mentioning their names.
So far as the aversion which the savage has to telling his own name, or
uttering that of any person (especially of the dead) or thing feared by
him is concerned, the reason is not far to seek. It lies in that
confusion between names and things which marks all primitive thinking. The
savage, who shrinks from having his likeness taken in the fear that a part
of himself is being carried away thereby, regards his name as something
through which he may be harmed. So he will use all sorts of roundabout
phrases to avoid saying it, and even change it that he may elude his foes,
and puzzle or cheat Death when he comes to look for him. But why a
son-in-law should not see the face of his mother-in-law, for so it is
among the Navajoes, (where the offender would, they say, go blind), the
Aranaks of South America, the Caribs and other tribes of more northern
regions, the Fijians, Sumatrans, Dyaks, the natives of Australia, the
Zulus, in brief, along the range of the lower culture, is a question to
which no satisfactory answer has been given, and to which reference is
here made because of its connection with totemism.
2. That the animal which is the totem of the tribe should not be eaten,
even where men did not hesitate to eat men of another totem, is a custom
for which it is less hard to account. The division of flesh into two
classes of forbidden and permitted, of clean and unclean, with the
resulting artificial liking or repulsion for food which custom arising out
of that division has brought about, is probably referable to old beliefs
in the inherent sacredness of certain animals. The Indians of Charlotte
Island never eat crows, because they believe in crow-ancestors, and they
smear themselves with black paint in memory of that tradition; the
Dacotahs would neither kill nor eat their totems, and if necessity compels
these and like barbarians to break the law, the meal is preceded by
profuse apologies and religious ceremonies over the slain. Although the
aborigines of Victoria, who are to be ranked among the lowest savages
extant, devour the most loathsome things, worms, slugs, and vermin, they
have a classification of meats to be eaten or avoided. A Kumite is deeply
grieved when hunger compels him to eat anything which bears his name, but
he may satisfy his hunger with anything that is Krokee. The abstention of
the Brahmans from meat, the pseudo-revealed injunction to the Hebrews
against certain flesh-foods (has that against pork its origin in the
forgotten tradition of descent from a boar?), need no detailing here. But,
as parallels, some restrictions amongst the ancient dwellers in these
islands are of value. It was, according to Cæsar,[47] a crime to eat the
domestic fowl, or goose, or hare, and to this day the last-named is an
object of disgust in certain parts of Russia and Brittany. The oldest
Welsh laws contain several allusions to the magical character of the hare,
which was thought to change its sex every month or year, and to be the
companion of the witches, who often assumed its shape.[48] The revulsion
against horse-flesh as food may have its origin in the sacredness of the
white horses, which, as Tacitus remarks,[49] were kept by the Germans at
the public cost in groves holy to the gods, whose secrets they knew, and
whose decrees regarding mortals their neighings interpreted. That this
animal was a clan-totem among our forefathers there can be no doubt, and
the proofs are with us in the white horses carved in outline on the chalk
hills of Berkshire and the west, as in the names and crests of clan
descendants.
The totem is not only the clan-name indicating descent from a common
ancestor. It is also the clan-symbol, badge, or crest. Where the tribes
among whom it is found are still in the picture-writing stage, _i.e._ when
the idea is expressed by a portrait of the thing itself instead of by some
sound-sign--a stage in writing corresponding to the primitive stage in
language, when words were imitative--there we find the rude hieroglyphic
of the totem a means of intercourse between different tribes, as well as
with whites. A striking example of the use of such totemic symbols occurs
in a petition sent by some Western Indian tribes to the United States
Congress for the right to fish in certain small lakes near Lake Superior.
The leading clan is represented by a picture of the crane; then follow
three martens, as totems of three tribes; then the bear, the man-fish, and
the cat-fish, also totems. From the eye and heart of each of the animals
runs a line connecting them with the eye and heart of the crane, to show
that they are all of one mind, and the eye of the crane has also a line
connecting it with the lakes on which the tribes have their eyes, and
another line running towards Congress.
In the barbaric custom of painting or carving the totem on oars, on the
bows and sides of canoes, on weapons, on pillars in the front of houses,
and on the houses themselves; in tattooing it on various parts of the body
(in the latter case, in some instances, together with pictures of
exploits; so that the man carries on his person an illustrated history of
his own life) we have the remote and forgotten origin of heraldic emblems.
The symbols of civilised nations, as, _e.g._ the Imperial eagle, which so
many states of ancient and modern renown have chosen; the crests of
families of rank, with their fabulous monsters, as the cherub, the Greek
_gryps_, surviving in the griffin, the dragon, the unicorn, which, born of
rude fancy or terrified imagination, are now carved on the entrance-gates
to the houses of the great; the armorial bearings on carriages; the crest
engraven on ring or embossed on writing-paper, these are the lineal
descendants of the totem; and the Indians, who could see no difference
between their system of manitous and those of the white people, with their
spread-eagle or their lion-rampant, made a shrewd guess that would not
occur to many a _parvenu_ applying at the Heralds’ College for a crest.
The continuity is traceable in the custom of the Mexicans and other
civilised nations of painting the totemic animals on their banners, flags,
crests, and other insignia; and it would seem that we have in the totem
the key to the mystery of those huge animal-shaped mounds which abound on
the North American continent.
The arbitrary selection in the “ages of chivalry” of such arms as pleased
the knightly fancy or ministered to its pride, or, as was often the case,
resembled the name in sound, together with the ignorance then and till
recently existing as to the origin of crests, and also the discredit into
which a seemingly meaningless vanity had fallen, have made it difficult to
trace the survival of the totem in the crests even of that numerous
company of the Upper Ten who claim descent from warriors who came over
with the Conqueror. But there is no doubt that an inquiry conducted on the
lines suggested above, and not led into by-paths by false analogies, would
yield matter of interest and value. It would add to the evidence of that
common semi-civilised stage out of which we have risen. Such names as the
Horsings, the Wylfings, the Derings, the Ravens, the Griffins, perhaps
hold within themselves traces of the totem name of the horse, wolf, deer,
raven, and that “animal fantasticall,” the griffin. In Scotland we find
the clan Chattan, or the wild cat; in Ireland “the men of Osory were
called by a name signifying the wild red deer.” On the other hand such
names may have been given merely as nicknames (_i.e._ ekename or the
_added_ name, from _eke_, “also,” or “to augment”), suggested by the
physical or mental likeness to the thing after which they are called.
But it is time to turn to the religious significance of the totem, as
shown among races worshipping the animal which is their supposed ancestor.
At first glance this seems strong argument in support of Mr. Herbert
Spencer’s theory that all forms of religion, and all myth, have their
origin in ancestor worship. The mysterious power of stimulation, of
excitation to frenzy, or of healing and soothing, or of poisoning, which
certain plants possess, has been attributed to indwelling spirits, which,
as Mr. Spencer contends, are regarded as human and ancestral. Very many
illustrations of this occur, as, _e.g._ the worship of the Soma plant, and
its promotion as a deity among the Aryans; the use of tobacco in religious
ceremonies among the tribes of both Americas; whilst now and again we find
trees and plants as totems. The Moquis have a totem-kin called the
tobacco-plant, and also one called the seed-grass. One of the Peruvian
Incas was called after the native name of the tobacco-plant; and among the
Ojibways the buffalo grass was carried as a charm, and its god said to
cause madness.
In Algonquin myth “there is a spirit for the corn, another for beans,
another for squashes. They are sisters, and are very kind to each other.
There are spirits in the water, in fire, in all the trees and berries, in
herbs and in tobacco, in the grass.”
The worship of animals is on Mr. Spencer’s theory explained as due to the
giving of a nickname of some beast or bird to a remote ancestor, the
belief arising in course of time that such animal was the actual
progenitor, hence its worship. We call a man a bear, a pig, or a vampire,
in symbolic phrase, and the figure of speech remains a figure of speech
with us. But the savage loses the metaphor, and it crystallises into hard
matter-of-fact. So the traditions have grown, and Black Eagle, Strong
Buffalo, Big Owl, Tortoise, etc., take the shape of actual forefathers of
the tribe bearing their name and crest. According to the same theory the
adoration of sun, moon, and mountains, etc., is due to a like source. Some
famous chief was called the Sun; the metaphor was forgotten; the personal
and concrete, as the more easily apprehended, remained; hence worship of
the powers of nature “is a form of ancestor-worship, which has lost in a
still greater degree the character of the original.”[50]
The objection raised in these pages to the extreme application of the
solar theory applies with equal force to Mr. Spencer’s limitation of the
origin of myth and religion to one source. Having cleared Scylla, we must
not dash against Charybdis. Religion has its origin neither in fear of
ghosts, as Mr. Spencer’s theory assumes, nor in a perception of the
Infinite inherent in man, as Professor Max Müller holds. Rather does it
lie in man’s sense of vague wonder in the presence of powers whose force
he cannot measure, and his expressions towards which are manifold. There
is underlying unity, but there are, to quote St. Paul, “diversities of
operation.” There is just that surface unlikeness which one might expect
from the different physical conditions and their resulting variety of
subtle influences surrounding various races; influences shaping for them
their gods, their upper and nether worlds; influences of climate and soil
which made the hell of volcanic countries an abyss of sulphurous stifling
smoke and everlasting fire, and the hell of cold climates a place of
deathly frost; which gave to the giant-gods of northern zones their rugged
awfulness, and to the goddesses of the sunny south their soft and stately
grace. The theory of ancestor-worship as the basis of every form of
religion does not allow sufficient play for the vagaries in which the same
thing will be dressed by the barbaric fear and fancy, nor for the
imagination as a creative force in the primitive mind even at the lowest
at which we know it. And, of course, beneath that lowest lies a lower
never to be fathomed. We are apt to talk of primitive man as if his
representatives were with us in the black fellows who are at the bottom of
the scale, forgetting that during unnumbered ages he was a brute in
everything but the capacity by which at last the ape and tiger were
subdued within him. Of the beginnings of his _thought_ we can know
nothing, but the fantastic forms in which it is first manifest compel us
to regard him as a being whose feelings were uncurbed by reason. That
ancestor-worship is one mode among others of man’s attitude towards the
awe-begetting, mystery-inspiring universe, none can deny. That his
earliest temples, as defined sacred spots, were tombs; that he prayed to
his dead dear ones, or his dead feared ones, as the case may be, is
admitted. From its strong personal character, ancestor-worship was,
without doubt, one of the earliest expressions of man’s attitude before
the world which his fancy filled with spirits. It flourishes among
barbarous races to-day; it was the prominent feature of the old Aryan
religion; it has entered into Christian practice in the worship of saints,
and perhaps the only feature of religion which the modern Frenchman has
retained is the _culte des morts_. That it was a part of the belief of the
Emperor Napoleon III. the following extract from his will shows:--“We must
remember that those we love look down upon us from heaven and protect us.
It is the soul of my great Uncle which has always guided and supported me.
Thus will it be with my son also if he proves worthy of his name.”