92 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



societies or brotherhoods rather than as observances, or ceremonies 

 performed by the whole clans. 



Fourth. Social duties of the kinsmen, that is to say the kinsman 

 looks to his brother kinsmen for sympathy and assistance in trouble or 

 need. Here again I am constrained to ask : " Is this totemism ?" As 

 I have shown, the clan is a blood-oonneoted group, and its members 

 naturally and spontaneously aid and help one another. Their very con- 

 nection prompts and suggests this. It is a world-wide universal 

 practice, and I cannot see that totemism has anything to do with it. 

 We find exactly the same custom prevailing among the " families " of 

 the Salish and other tribes whose organization is neither clannish, 

 gentile nor totemic. Surely this " element " has the least right of any 

 to be considered an essential feature of totemism. 



Fifth. Myths of explanation. Here again I fail to see why this 

 should bel regarded as an "element" of totemism, when that which is 

 much more characteristic of that doctrine: — personal and society totems 

 --^are rigidly excluded in Dr. Haddon's definition. It is true most 

 peoples have myths explaining or accounting for the origin of their 

 totems, but I marvel that Dr. Haddon should claim these among his 

 elements as they so invariably show that the group or clan totem was 

 originally a personal or individual totem of the founder of the olan, a 

 form or feature of totemism he deliberately rejects. Moreover, myths of 

 explanation are not peculiar to totemism, they run through the whole 

 body of tribal habits, customs and beliefs, and the myths explaining the 

 origin of totems differ in no essential from the myths explaining 

 the origin of the tribe or cosmos. 



Thus, it is clear, there is little of totemism, when it is rightly re- 

 garded, in Dr. Haddon's five '' elements "; from which it is seen that he 

 has considered the social accessories and later accidents of totemism 

 rather than the psychic content of the doctrine itself. That he, and those 

 who hold like views with him, are justified in their position by the facts 

 of the ease, I cannot persuade myself, nor do I see that we arrive at any 

 better understanding of the matter by setting up a form of so-called 

 " true" or " typical " totemism, — which appears to me to be fashioned 

 more after the preconceived ideas of a cultivated European than after 

 the ideas of an American or Australian savage, — than by seeking to 

 comprehend the principle or concept that lies at the base of the doctrine. 

 To my mind, the apprehension of the efficient cause of totemism leads 

 to a better understanding of the doctrine in all its manifestations than 

 any vision of totemism in its "fully developed condition," and I sub- 

 mit that we may derive more profit from our consideration of the sub- 

 ject when all "animal cults" are considered as only so many local phases 

 or expressions of one and the same fundaan'ental concept, as they de- 



