174 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute [vol. x 



Of the shaman and his attributions I need only say that both are 

 essentially the same in America as in Siberia. This is a well-known 

 fact; useless to insist. We are all aware that the shaman's main office 

 in the former country was to drive off the body of the sick the evil 

 spirit which was reputed the cause of his ailment. See the counterpart 

 of this in Asia: 



"D'apres I'opinion religieuse des Tartares c'est toujours un Tchut- 

 gour, ou diable, qui tourmente par sa presence la partie malade"/ and 

 this devil, or spirit, is everywhere cast out(?) of the body by means of 

 a like exorcism. 



It is also this belief in spirits that accounts for the system of totems, 

 at least in both Siberia and North America, whatever Messrs. J. G. 

 Frazer, Andrew Lang and others of the European school may have 

 written to the contrary. Thus we read of the Yakuts that "each Tribe 

 of these People looks upon some particular Creature as sacred, i.e. a 

 Swan, Goose, Raven, etc., and such is not eaten by that Tribe, though 

 the others may eat it".^ 



In the second volume of his monumental work on "Totemism and 

 Exogamy", J. G. Frazer has it that "the two tribes, the Chukchees 

 and the Koryacks, who inhabit the part of Asia nearest to America, 

 appear to be entirely without both totemism and exogamy, the two 

 great institutions so characteristic of the North American Indian".' 



I have not made of this question an exhaustive study ; yet I dare say 

 that the erudite author is mistaken as regards both Tchuktchis and 

 Koriacks — at least if we take totemism in the American sense of the 

 word.^ Being to him a mere social system, without any necessary con- 

 nection with the religion of a people, totemism is, in his estimation, a 

 correlative of exogamy. But, as I understand the former, it is not neces- 

 sarily related to matrimonial alliances or descent, and, though we find 

 in America many tribes in what I consider to be the secondary stage 

 of social organisation, matriarchy, who practise exogamy because they 

 have adopted the gentile system and consequent tribal totems, those 

 who have not outgrown that primary stage of human society, which I 

 believe to have been patriarchy, generally do not know of these, but are 

 quite familiar with the individual or personal totem. ^ 



Now the Tchuktchis certainly know of the latter, in common with all 

 the more primitive and unadulterated Denes, who never heard of the 



* Hue, Souvenirs d'un Voyage en Tartarie, Vol. I, p. 121. 



* S. MuUer, "Voyages from Asia to America", pp. III-IV. 



'"Totemism and Exogamy", Vol. II, p. 348; London, 1910. See also A. Lang, 

 "The Secret of the Totem"; London, 1905. 



* Perhaps even though we were to take it in the sense of the English school. 



* This personal totem the English school calls the manitou. 



