Sacred Animals in Savage Society.
Savages, both in their groups of kin, in their magical societies or clubs, and privately as individuals, are apt to regard certain beasts, plants, and so on, as the guardians of the group, of the society, and of the private person. To these animal guardians, whether of the individual, the society, or the group of kin, they show a certain amount of reverence and respect. That reverence naturally takes much the same forms, the inevitable forms; as, of not killing or eating the animal, occasionally of praying to it, or of burying dead representatives of the species, as may happen. But I am unaware that the savage ever calls his personal selected animal, or plant, or the guardian animal of his magical society (except among the Arunta, where the totem groups are evolving into magical clubs), by the same term as he applies to the hereditary guardian of his group of kindred — his totem, as I use the word. If I am right, this distinction has been overlooked, or thought insignificant, by some modern inquirers. Major Powell, the Director of the Ethnological Bureau at Washington, appears to apply the the word totem both to the chosen animal friend of the individual, and to that of the magical society in America, which includes men of various group-totems.[1] He also applies it to the totem of the kin. Mr. Frazer, too, writes of (1) The Clan Totem, (2) The Sex Totem (in Australia), (3) "The Individual Totem, belonging to a single individual, and not passing to his descendants," and even indicates that one savage may have five totems.[2] The third rule, as to the non-hereditable character of "The Individual Totem" has, since Mr. Frazer wrote in 1887, been found to admit
"Totam," and even speaks of "Totamism." Mr. Tylor has pointed out that Long in one place confuses the totem, the hereditary kin-name, and protective object, with what used to be called the manitu, or "medicine," of each individual Indian, chosen by him, or her, after a fast, at puberty. Remarks on Totemismm, 1898, pp. 139-140 (in J. A. I. , vol. xviii).
