32 FISHES OF FANCY. 



Totemism, the system of tribal emblems — " medicine 

 animals " and " clan-animals " — brings into the category 

 of sacred fish another class of great interest, namely 

 those which have been selected by primitive clans as 

 their tutelary genii.* Thus the Pike, Trout, and Sturgeon 

 are among the totems of Red Indian tribes. There are 

 Fish-tribes of both Africans and Australians. Among the 

 Fijians are Eels, Crabs, and Sharks. These individual 

 fishes, thus chosen as the tribal badge, are held sacred by 

 those who have adopted them. They are called the pro- 

 genitors of the tribe, and are never eaten, nor, if possible, 

 even molested. Among the Wakerewe (of Africa) it is 

 believed that the fish of a neighbouring lake are their 

 special ministers and creatures, and are therefore under 

 their protection. If a fish-hawk so much as touches one, 

 it dies in the very act. With another African race the 

 drum-head fish is taboo, and its teeth, rattled in the 

 fetich-man's gourd, give forth Delphic utterances. 



Going back to the past again, we find fish arriving at 

 sanctity by previous uncleanness, and cities taking their 

 totems, so to speak, from the polluted creatures which in 

 the lapse of time they came to worship. When Isis was 

 collecting .the remains of the body of Osiris, she found a 

 portion missing, and discovering that the fish had eaten it, 

 the three species found in the river at that part were for- 

 bidden to be eaten by the people of the neighbourhood. 

 The Egyptians in general, says Plutarch, do not absta, i 

 from all fish, but some from one sort and some from 

 another. Thus the Oxyrhinchites will not touch any fish 

 taken by a hook, for as they pay special deference to the 

 oxyrhinchus, from which they take their name, they are 

 afraid the hook may be defiled by having, at some time or 



* See also Chap. VII. 



