94 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



superfluity of which could be bartered for the superfluities of other 

 groups .... Among the shore-folk the group that lived mainly 

 on crabs and ocoasionally traded in crabs might well be spoken of as 

 " crab men " by all groups with whom they came in direct or indirect 

 contact. The same woul'd hold good for the group that dealt in clams 

 or in turtles, and reciprocally there might be sago-men, bamboo-men, 

 and so forth. It is obvious that men who persistently collected or 

 hunted a particular group of animals would understand the habits of 

 these animals better than other people, and a personal regard for these 

 animals would naturally arise. Thus, from the very beginning, there 

 would be a distinct relationship between a group of individuials and a 

 group O'f animals or plants, relationship that primitively was based, not 

 on even the miost elementary of psychic concepts, but on the most deeply 

 seated and urgent of human claims, hunger." 



The point that strikes one first in this suggestion is that it knocks 

 all to pieces the " Canon of Taboo," which is included in Dr. Haddon's 

 second " element." Dr. Haddon is, of course, aware of this and explains 

 it away by remarking that his .suggestion " deals with incipient totem- 

 ism " only. This again is, of course, an incomprehensible position from 

 the American point of view, but it serves admirably to show that English 

 students regard the social concomitants of totemism as its essential 

 features — a view, as I have shown, impossible to hold if we would rightly 

 understand this phenomenon of savage life. 



Now the objections that arise in my mind as I consider this hy- 

 pothesis are several and some of them deep-rooted. 



First, these names come from without; they are not taken or as- 

 sumed by the groups themselves, but are applied to them by the neigh- 

 bouring groups. And while we have numerous instances of nick-names 

 being given both to individuals and tribes by their neighbours, I can 

 recall no instance where these names have been recognized and adopted 

 by the individuals or groups thus named. Endless tribes and division 

 of this country have had names descriptive of their habitat, the food upon 

 which they chiefly live, their mental or physical characteristics, etc., 

 bestowed upon them; but in no case that I can discover have those 

 names been recognized or adopted by the people tihemselves; and to 

 apply these names to them to their faces is to deeply insult them and 

 wound their self-respect. 



Secondly. If this were the true origin of group names we ought to 

 find ample evidence of it in the names themselves. Now, a study of clan 

 names as they obtain in America gives little support to Dr. Haddon's 

 theory. For while they are generally called after the names of the ob- 

 jects of the present environment of the clan or group or tribe, (and this 

 is a highly significant fact which has been too much overlooked in our 



