202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the permanent possession of land by the clan and a right of indi- 

 vidual occupancy for periods sufficient to offer a proper stimulus 

 for improvements. This was done by the institution of the Sab- 

 batical year or the year of jubilee. The Indians, not having 

 reached the true sedentary stage (except in rare instances), were 

 not obliged to invent that device. Thus it holds true among both 

 peoples that no man could acquire an absolute proj)erty in land. 

 The estate was not in him but in his clan. 



Forbidden Food. The Indians long observed a prohibition 

 against killing or eating any part of the animal connected with 

 their totem. For instance, most of the southern Indians abstained 

 from killing the wolf ; the Navajo do not kill bears ; the Osage 

 never killed the beaver until the skins became valuable for sale. 

 Afterward some of the animals previously held sacred were 

 killed ; but apologies were made to them at the time, and in al- 

 most all cases a particular ceremony was observed with regard 

 to certain parts of those animals which were not to be used for food 

 on the principle of synecdoche, the temptation to use the food being 

 too strong to permit entire abstinence. The Cheroki forbade the 

 use of the tongues of the deer and bear for food. They cut these 

 members out and cast them into the fire sacramentally. A prac- 

 tice reported this year as still existing among the Ojibwa is in 

 point, though with instructive variation. There is a formal re- 

 striction against members of the bear clan eating the animal, yet 

 by a subdivision within the same clan an arrangement is made so 

 that sub-clans may among them eat the whole animal. When a 

 bear is killed, the head and paws are eaten by those who form 

 one branch of the bear totem, and the remainder is reserved for 

 the others. Other Indians have invented a differentiation in which 

 some clansmen may eat the ham and not the shoulder of certain 

 animals, and others the shoulder and not the ham. 



The Egyptians did not allow the eating of animals that bore 

 wool. This prohibition has been attributed to the sacred char- 

 acter of the sphinx, and it has other religious connections. It is 

 supposed by some writers that the legislation of Moses with refer- 

 ence to forbidden food was aimed to antagonize social union with 

 the Egyptians by prohibiting to the Israelites edibles generally 

 used by the Egyptians, and vice versa. It is true that some kinds 

 of food forbidden to one of these nations were allowed to the other, 

 but the rule was not general, and in particular the abstinence of 

 both peoples from swine is inconsistent with the hypothesis. A 

 more .conclusive criticism is that the legislation so interpreted 

 would have been too late for application. The Israelites had left 

 Egypt before even the alleged time of its promulgation. 



The survival of totemism may be inferred from the lists of 

 forbidden food in Leviticus xi and Deuteronomy xiv. It would 



