} 
[æizi-rour] ORIGIN OF THE TOTEMISM OF THE ABORIGINES 9 
The same or slightly different beliefs are common to all the native 
races of this region, must be, indeed, to all races who look out upon 
their physical environment with animistic eyes. What is more natural 
under these circumstances than that we should find among them per- 
sonal, gentile and clan names common to themselves, to animals, plants 
and other natural objects? It is hardly necessary to point out that where 
there is no distinction there can be no “confusion.” 
This consideration leads us naturally to consider how the particular 
animal or plant or object became the totem or tutelar spirit of the 
individual, the gens or the clan. To apply the term “deity” or “god” 
to the totems of this region is to miscall them, and misconceive their 
true significance and character. In no instance, I believe, can we find 
a totem here which is regarded in such a light by its owner or owners. 
It is important in the first place to bear in mind that it is always 
the essence or the “mystery,” or, to use the convenient terms of the 
Eskimo philosophy, the inua or the yua, which respectively becomes the 
totem, not the bodily form of the animal or object.1 This is the reason 
why totemic carvings and representations are quite commonly kept 
covered or hidden from public gaze. Where the outward form or repre- 
sentation is there is also the indwelling mystery. The two, in the 
primitive mind, are inseparable. 
I have said that personal totems play an important part in the 
totemism of this region; and that from them spring the totems of the 
gens and clan, as they in turn sprang from an earlier fetishism. The 
evidence in support of this view is mainly drawn from my studies of 
the different Salish tribes? These tribes are peculiarly interesting, 
inasmuch as they present a very varied and unequal cultural develop- 
ment. If we proceed from the tribes of the Interior down the Fraser 
to the coast, we find an increasing complexity in their social organiza- 
tions presenting itself. Among the N’tlakäpamuQ and contiguous 
inland tribes, clan and gentile totems are wholly unknown. The social 
organization-is extremely loose and simple. A man may marry any 
woman of the tribe not akin to him by blood; the only incest group being 
composed of those who are consanguineally related. Even personal or 
individual totems in the Frazerian sense of the word are equally un- 
known. Personal tutelar spirits or essences are common; but these 

*Do we not catch here a glimpse of the real mental attitude of the “wor- 
shippers of wood and stone’’? It is not the wood and stone they worship 
or adore, but the indwelling essence of the being their idols typify. 
? Mr. Hartland informs me thalt Dr. Boas has expressed the belief in his 
paper on “ The social organization of the Kwakiutl Indians,’’ published by 
the Smithsonian Institution, that the personal totem has given rise to the 
clan totem among the Indians of this region, the evidence for which belief 
he drew mainly from his study of the Kwakiutl tribes. 
