[æizz-rour] ORIGIN OF THE TOTEMISM OF THE ABORIGINES vA 
Reverting again to the origin of totems, there appears to me to 
be no reason to call in any such explanation as the “confusion” or 
“supposed resemblance” theories. To take such views of the question 
is to look at it from the culture-state of the European, and not from 
that of the savage. To rightly understand savage conceptions one 
must view things as far as is possible from the stand-point and mental 
view of the savage. Many of our mistakes are due to our forgetfulness 
or our inability to do this. Totemism and its kindred institutions are 
obviously the outcome of animistic conceptions of the universe. No 
one can study the present primitive races of the world, or at any rate 
those of this continent, without having this conclusion forced upon him. 
A study of the personal and gentile names of the Indians of this region 
shows that names of animals, of plants and of familiar objects are 
amongst the commonest of personal names. Nor are these nicknames, 
but true praenomina, mostly given, in the case of individuals, shortly 
after birth, before any resemblance is apparent or possible. It is true 
later in life animal and other nicknames are not uncommonly applied to 
individuals by their fellows from some fancied or real resemblance to 
the form or character of the creature or object after which they are 
named; or from some incident or peculiar circumstance in which these 
have played an important part. For example, a man may be nicknamed 
“Beaver” because he exhibits more than ordinary wisdom in the trans- 
actions of his life; or “Coyote” because of his marked cunning and 
duplicity. But such nicknaming does not furnish a tithe of the animal 
names borne by the members of any given tribe; nor is it in this habit 
that we must seek for the true explanation of this custom.so common 
among primitive races. To us who have passed, more or less, beyond the 
animistic stage of philosophy it may at first sight appear strange that 
human beings should customarily call themselves by the same names as 
they call the animals or plants of their habitat, but from the point of 
view of the animistic savage, who sees no distinction and recognizes no 
essential difference between mankind and the rest of creation, such 
names are at once most rational and appropriate. With him animals 
and plants, as well as every other object in nature, are only so many 
transformed human or semi-human beings, many of which still possess 
the power to appear in human guise at will, and all of which are pos- 
sessed, like himself, of a shade or spiritual essence. In the myths I 
have collected from the Salish tribes, which relate the circumstance and 
occasion of many of these transformations, the animal, or plant, or rock, 
or other object, bore the name by which it is now known before its meta- 
morphosis took place. Instead then of the native calling himself by the 
names of animals and plants, it is really the other way about; and these 
now bear the names formerly applied to them when they were conceived 
