80 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Aiew was based on the idea common in Màrchen of an individual iiiding 

 his soul or spirit in some object or other, and thus forming a 

 mysterious and intimate connection between himself and the object. 

 '^ Here was the link," reasoned Dr. Frazer, " the relation between the 

 individual and liis tutelar spirit; here was the personal totem." This 

 view had this much in common with the American view that it supposed 

 the group totem to be a development from the personal totem, and here, 

 at least. Dr. Frazer was on the right track. For to separate p'ersonal 

 totemism from group totemism as many Eurapean students are doing, 

 and regard them as unrelated phenomena savours it seems to me of any- 

 thing but sound science. Dr. Frazer argued, and rightly we hold, that 

 '' the explanaition which holds good of one kind of totem ought equally 

 to hold good of the other " ; and hence he drew the deduction that a 

 clan OT gens revered its totem and called itself after its name, because 

 the members thereof were held to have their individual lives or souls 

 bound up with that of their totem. The obvious objection, of course, 

 to this explanation of totemism is, that (this belief is found amionig 

 so few savages who practise totemism. Dr. Frazer himself was con- 

 scious of this objection but explains it away after this manner . " How 

 close" he argues, "must be the concealment, how impenetrable the 

 reserve in which he," (the savage) " hides the inner keep and citadel 

 of his being. No inducement that can be offered is likely to tempt 

 him to imperil his soul by revealing its hiding place to a stranger." 

 The answer to this is, that the close study of the Americin savage, who 

 almost everywhere holds totem notions, by experienced students like 

 Gushing, Dorsey, Fletcher, Powell and others, must have revealed some 

 signs of its existence if it had formed a part of his philosophy of life 

 or lay at the root of totemism. The question has been studied too long 

 and too carefully for this belief, if it had ever been entertained, to have 

 escaped disoovery. For even if it had, conceivably, been everyvdiere 

 systematically withheld by the natives from every white investigator 

 who has ever gone among them, it must have been known to all Indians 

 V lio held totemic notions. Yet, no Indian who has been weaned from 

 the faith and practices of his fathers, or who has thrown off the old 

 pagan habits and customs for those of civilized life, has ever told us a 

 word about it. We have educated natives among us who are, equally 

 with ourselves, keenly interested in the study of the customs and philo- 

 sophy of their people, and it is not conceivable that they would know or 

 learn nothing of such a belief, if it were the true basis and explanation 

 of the totemism of their forefathers. This view, then, must have been 

 set aside, even if its author had not discarded it, as he apparently has, 

 on the ground that it is lacking in that feature wlhich must necessarily 



