similar clan-names customary over the world, this system of dividing tribes being called Totemism. Unfortunately for the study of the subject, John Long, the trader interpreter who introduced the Ojibwa word totem into Europe in 1791, does not seem to have grasped its meaning in the native law of marriage and clanship, but to have confused the totem-animal of the clan with the patron or guardian animal of the individual hunter, his manitu or 'medicine.'[1] Even when the North American totem-clans came to be better understood as social institutions regulating marriage, the notion of the guardian spirit still clung to them. Sir George Grey, who knew of the American totem-clans from the 'Archæologia Americana,' put on record in 1841 a list of exogamous classes in West Australia, and mentioned the opinion frequently given by the natives as to the origin of these class-names, that they were derived from some animal or vegetable being very common in the district which the family inhabited, so that the name of this animal or vegetable came to be applied to the family. This seems so far valuable evidence, but Grey was evidently led by John Long's mistaken statement, which he quotes, to fall himself into the same confusion between the tribal name and the patron animal or vegetable, the 'kobong' of his natives, which he regarded as a tribal totem.[2] In Mr. J. G. Frazer's valuable collection of information on totemism,[3] the use of the self-contradictory term 'individual totem' has unfortunately tended to perpetuate this confusion. In the present state of the problem of totemism, it would be premature to discuss at length its development and purpose. Mention may however be made of observations which tend to place it on a new footing, as being distinctly related to the transmigration of souls. In Melanesia men
- ↑ John Long, 'Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter,' London, 1791, p. 86. See pp. 233, 411 of present volume.
- ↑ Grey, 'Journals of Expeditions in N. W. & W. Australia,' vol. ii. pp. 225-9; 'Archæologia Americana,' vol. ii. p. 109.
- ↑ J. G. Frazer, 'Totemism,' p. 53; 'Golden Bough,' 2nd ed. vol. iii. pp. 419, 423.
