[hill-tout] TOTEMISM : ITS ORIGIN AND IMPORT 97 



aud remarks that this nianie was applied to the Arctic races in America 

 l'y tlie neighbouring Indians; but Mr. Lang should surely be aware 

 that no Eskimo native ever calls himself, or rather speaks of himself 

 by tlris term, but always by his own name of Inuit or its equivalent. I 

 could cite scores of cases of names applied by one Indian tribe to an- 

 other, but I know of no single instance where those tribes have ever 

 adopted and assumed them, and the only evidence Mr. Lang himisielf 

 «offers that any of those sobriquets " stick " and become recognized and 

 adopted by the people to wlhom they are ajpplied, is that drawn from 

 the practice of schoolboys of the present day. He remarks : " Each 

 group would, I suggest, evolve animal and vegetable nicknames for 

 each neighbouring group. Finally some names would ' stick,' would 

 be stereotyped, and. each group would answer to its nickname just as 

 Pussy Moncrief, or Bull-dog Irving or Piggy Eraser or Cow Maitland 

 does at school." ' But even accepting this kind of evidence seriously^ 

 Mr. Lang forgets that the oases are noit parallel. The schoolboy 

 cannot help himself; when his seniors or his physical superiors address 

 him by his nickname, he has to answer to it or be kicked; but does the 

 youth pride himself on his nickname and desire that he shall be known 

 in the family circle by it, and thereafter retain it ? Mr. Lang will 

 ipardon me if I say that to my mind his hypothesis is truly a " guess '^ 

 and nothing more. I am bound to remind him, too, that he found 

 fault -with the evidence Miss Fletcher, I, and other American students 

 offered for the origin of group-totems' taken from savage tribes im- 

 measurably nearer to the primitive condition of mankind than his 

 European villagers and Scotch schoolboys, and rejected it on the 

 ground that these tribes had passed beyond the matriarchal state. 

 What shall be said then for his main evidence, which is drawn from 

 modern English and French villages and from schoolboys life ? Mr. 

 Lang may claim that he has offered evidence from American tribes 

 under patriarchy, from the same stock, indeed, from which Miss Flet- 

 cher drew her evidence. But even granting the validity of this evi- 

 dence, or rather Mr. Lang's interpretation of it, , which I am unable to 

 do, as it appears to me to be founded upon a misconception, why, I 

 would ask, should Mr Lang desire to refer to the customs of the Siouan 

 tribes in support of his theory, and preclude Miss Fletcher or others 

 from doing the same ? Of the two classes of evidence, the superior 

 cogency of that of Miss Fletcher must be apjparent to anybody. 



Kow I submit, in conclusion, that the view of totemism here advo- 

 cated suggests at the same time an origin for totem group-names that 

 does no violence to the modes of savage thought and reasoning, and 



' The origin of Totem Names and Beliefs. Trans. Folk-Ix>re, Vol. VHI, No. 

 4, 1902, p. 386. 



Sec. II., 1903. 7. 



