beasts is most clearly proved by the construction of Red Indian society. The "totemistic" stage of thought and manners prevails. Thus Charlevoix says,[1] "Plusieurs nations ont chacune trois familles ou tribus principales, aussi anciennes, à ce qu'il paroit, que leur origine. Chaque tribu porte le nom d'un animal, et la nation entière a aussi le sien, dont elle prend le nom, et dont la figure est sa marque, ou, se l'on veut, ses armoiries, on ne signe point autrement les traités, qu'en traceant ces figures." Among the animal totems Charlevoix notices porcupine, bear, wolf, and turtle. The armoiries, the totemistic heraldry of the peoples of Virginia, greatly interested a heraldic ancestor of Gibbon the historian,[2] who settled in the colony. According to Schoolcraft,[3] the totem or family badge of a dead warrior is drawn in a reverse position on his grave-post. In the same way the leopards of England are drawn reversed on the shield of an English king opposite the mention of his death in old monkish chronicles. As a general rule,[4] persons bearing the same totem in America cannot intermarry. "The union must be between various totems." Moreover, as in the case of the Australians, "the descent of the chief is in the female line.f We thus find among the Red Men precisely the same totemistic regulations as among the aborigines of Australia.
- ↑ Histoire de la France-Nouvelle, iii. 266.
- ↑ Introductio ad Latinam Blasoniam, by John Gibbon, Blue Mantle, London, 1682. "The dancers were painted, some party per pale, gul, and sab, some party per fesse of the same colours;" whence Gibbon concluded "that heraldry was ingrafted naturally into the sense of the humane race."
- ↑ Vol. i. p. 356.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, v. 73.
