THE DOCTRINE OF LUNAR SYMPATHY 651 



of Borneo who have secret animal helpers ^ are a few samples of widely 

 scattered beliefs that disclose the primitive estimate of the animal. This 

 primitive estimate is incarnated in the dragon, who may be regarded as a 

 typical personage of myth in many roles. The dragon, as he appears in 

 primitive myths, represents the impression of magical power and eminency 

 made by the animal on the primitive mind. 



Since primitive society includes animals with men, and since men may 

 have animal ancestries, primitive classification does not divide animate nature 

 by lines which separate men, animals, and plants into three distinct groups. 

 Groups or clans are defined by lines, which, so to speak, cut across these 

 divisions and include in each section a group that comprises a certain set of 

 human beings with some animal or plant species. Plants are less prominent 

 in these totemic divisions than animals, but they frequently occur in them. 

 The species of plant or animal included with any group of human beings in 

 one of these divisions is usually termed by anthropologists the " totem " 

 of the group. The totemic phase of primitive life, which some writers think 

 was a distinct stage of human evolution,^ is most completely represented 

 to-day among the Australian aborigines. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, in 

 their two famous books, have described a number of their social systems that 

 are extensively cut up into these totemic divisions. In one tribe, for example, 

 one group of men are " emu men " — they and the emus are classed together 

 in one division, and the men regard the emu as one of themselves. Other 

 animals are, similarly, the totems of other groups, and, less frequently, plants 

 or even inanimate objects are the totems of other men. The relations 

 between human totemic groups and their totems vary, but the essential 

 •significance of totemism for the present discussion is its emphasis on the 

 social community between men and animals. The totem tends to be the 

 ancestor of the group, and its relations with its human section of the totemic 

 division to be those of kinship. It tends also to social eminency in the totemic 

 group, in apparent accordance with a primitive tendency to estimate the 

 power and significance of the animal above human power and significance. 



In the moon stories previously considered the moon is obviously a member 

 of the social community, and this extension of the social group, through 

 animal and plant, to include inanimate objects is characteristic of primitive 

 life. The primitive distinction between man and animal is not so made 

 as to exclude their social community. The Malagasy who thinks his ancestor 

 was a crocodile or the Australian " emu man " who thinks he and the emu 

 are kinsmen must realise that men are not crocodiles or emus — their eyes 

 guarantee that. But they include men and various animals in groups 

 because, in spite of obvious differences, animals are qualified for society. 

 Inanimate objects may be similarly qualified, though they are as obviously 

 different from men as animals are. Though the personalisation of the moon 

 ascribes to her human qualities it need not imply that she is human — eyes 

 again guarantee that. The essence of the primitive notion is social com- 

 munity between m.an and inanimate objects, though this social community 

 tends to represent inanimate things as human in character. The belief of 

 one Australian tribe that certain rocks changed into kangaroos hints at a 

 connection between men and stones (for kangaroos might be ancestors of 

 men) that suggests social community between them without implication of 

 personality in the latter. The ancestors of the Australian Diari usually 

 changed into stones when they died.^ This metamorphosis of stones into 

 animals and of men into stones is allied to the metamorphosis of men into 

 animals or plants, and vice versa, that is so prominent in primitive beliefs 



^ Hose and McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo. 



2 Vide Wundt, loc. cit. 



3 Nature, February 12, 1920, " Australian Signposts." 



