166 Primitive Theories of the Origin of Man 



charming wife for his son, he took her home and educated her untL 

 she was fit to be married. She consented to be the son's wife 

 cautioning her husband to use her well. Some time after their 

 marriage, however, being out of temper, he struck her, when she 

 screamed, and rushed away into the water ; but not without leaving 

 behind her a beautiful daughter, who became afterwards the mother 

 of the race 1 ." 



Members of a clan in Mandailing, on the west coast of Sumatra, 

 assert that they are descended from a tiger, and at the present day, 

 when a tiger is shot, the women of the clan are bound to offer betel 

 to the dead beast. When members of this clan come upon the tracks 

 of a tiger, they must, as a mark of homage, enclose them with 

 three little sticks. Further, it is believed that the tiger will not 

 attack or lacerate his kinsmen, the members of the clan 2 . The 

 Battas of Central Sumatra are divided into a number of clans which 

 have for their totems white buffaloes, goats, wild turtle-doves, dogs, 

 cats, apes, tigers, and so forth; and one of the explanations which 

 they give of their totems is that these creatures were their ancestors, 

 and that their own souls after death can transmigrate into the 

 animals 3 . In Amboyna and the neighbouring islands the inhabitants 

 of some villages aver that they are descended from trees, such as 

 the Capellenia moluccana, which had been fertilised by the Panrlion 

 Haliaetus. Others claim to be sprung from pigs, octopuses, croco- 

 diles, sharks, and eels. People will not burn the wood of the trees 

 from which they trace their descent, nor eat the flesh of the animals 

 which they regard as their ancestors. Sicknesses of all sorts are 

 believed to result from disregarding these taboos 4 . Similarly in 

 Ceram persons who think they are descended from crocodiles, 

 serpents, iguanas, and sharks will not eat the flesh of these animals 5 . 



1 The Lord Bishop of Labuan, "On the Wild Tribes of the North-West Coast of 

 Borneo," Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, n. (London, 

 1863), pp. 26 sq. Such stories conform to a well-known type which may be called the 

 Swan-Maiden type of story, or Beauty and the Beast, or Cupid and Psyche. The occurrence 

 of stories of this type among totemic peoples, such as the Tshi-speaking negroes of the Gold 

 Coast, who tell them to explain their totemic taboos, suggests that all such tales may have 

 originated in totemism. I shall deal with this question elsewhere. 



2 H. Ris, "De Onderafdeeling Klein Mandailing Oeloe en Pahantan en hare Bevolking 

 met uitzondering van de Oeloes," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde run Neder- 

 landsch-Indifl, XLVI. (1896), p. 473. 



3 J. B. Neumann, "Het Pane en Bila-stroomgebied op het eiland Sumatra," Tijdsclirift 

 van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede Serie, in. Afdeeliug, Meer 

 uitgebreide Artikelen, No. 2 (Amsterdam, 1886), pp. 311 sq. ; id. ib. Tweede Serie, iv. 

 Afdeeling, Meer uitgebreide Artikelen, No. 1 (Amsterdam, 1887), pp. 8 sq. 



4 J. G. F. Biedel, De sluik- en kroeshariae rassen tusschfii Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 

 1886), pp. 32, 61 ; G. W. W. C. Baron van Hoevell, Ambon en meer bepualdelijk de Oeliasen 

 (Dordrecht, 1875), p. 152. 



8 J. G. F. Biedel, op. cit. p. 122. 



