88 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Second. " Eeciprocal responsibilities between the kin and the 

 totem " — in other words " the totems are regarded as kinsfolk and pro- 

 tectors, or benefactors of the kinsmen who respect them and abstain 

 from killing and eating them." Here, Dr. Haddon is in some respects 

 on safer ground. The totems are naturally, for obvious reasons, treated 

 with respect and regarded as the " protectors " or " benefactors " of the 

 individual and the totem group. But when he claiimis that they are com- 

 monly regarded as kinsfolk, using that term in its ordinary sense, and 

 that the kinsmen refrain from killing and eating them, we have again 

 what appears more like an over-^hasty generalization of the savant rather 

 than the actual belief and practices of the savage, and Dr. Haddon will 

 find it extremely difficult to maintain this view in face of the array of 

 opposing evidence which later ethnological research furnishes on this 

 head. This is so strong, that from a consideration of a portion of it 

 from one source alone — the Central Australian — Dr. Frazer has been 

 led to set aside his Canon of Taboo and regard this rule of abstention as 

 liaving no important bearing upon totemism, or at most to be only a 

 later subsidiary feature of it. The traditions of the AriTuta represent 

 their ancestors as possessing and freely exercising the right to kill and 

 eat their totem animals and plants, " as if this were indeed a functional 

 necessity."^ And American data fully bear out the truth and reliability 

 of these traditions. Yet, Dr. Haddon makes no reference to these dis- 

 cordances with his " eleanents " in his address, nor does his theory of 

 totemism attempt to explain them, which, as Dr. Frazer has observed, 

 every theory of totemism is bound to do. 



The study of this question of taboO' from the point of view of 

 American eyidence, has led me to the conclusion that the practice of 

 abstaining from killing and eating the tofem object, when an edible 

 •one, anises in part only from the suppo.sed relation existing between the 

 totem and the possessor or possessors of it. It is seen to be mainly the 

 outcome of the animistic philosophy of savage man and his belief regard- 

 ing the animal and vegetal world. Among all American tribes, no 

 matter what their social structure may be — clan, gens, or village com- 

 munity, we find numerous and curious rules and regulations and tahoos 

 regarding the slaying, gathering and eating of animals and plants, which 

 are quite independent of totemism, the explanation of which becomes 

 measurably clear to uis, when we bear in mind the universal attitude of 

 savage man towards the universe, as we have seen it revealed to us by 

 Gushing and other sympathetic students of primitive life. 



The origin of these food taboos and restrictions arises primarily 

 from the savage's strong belief in the " mysterious " powers of animals 

 and plants; and the practice of them was originally, whatever it may 

 * The Natives Tribes of Central Australia, p. 209. 



