PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 613 
plenty would be got. 5. In Florida, of the Solomon group, 
the people are divided into several exogamous clans, each 
of which has at least one object which is prohibited to all 
its members. Thus the members of one division may not 
eat the giant clam, and the forbidden food of another is 
the common fruit-eating pigeon. One of these clans is 
named after a fishing hawk, another after a species of 
crab, and the crab clan may not eat the crab. A member of one 
of these clans would not hesitate in saying that the thing he 
might not eat was his ancestor. In a book called “ Percy Pomo” 
(which describes, in fact, native life in this island), an old 
native is represented as horror-struck at the sight of dark 
blue trousers, because some part of the inside of the shark, of a 
dark-blue colour, was a forbidden thing to his family. 
It is easy to see a Totem in each of these examples. An 
European observer would now be pretty certain to describe them 
as Totems. A boy in a mission school in Aurora would be 
observed to refuse to eat breadfruit; a strange phenomenon, 
which would call for explanation. The explanation given would 
be understood to be that the origin of the boy was the breadfruit. 
Similar explanations would connect other boys with other articles 
of food. ‘They could not, under penalty of sickness or death, eat 
those things from which they drew their origin or beginning. 
A Banks’ Islander would be found to have a snake, lizard, or 
what not, closely connected with his life ; his origin or beginning 
of life would be said to be in it ; he would be seen to have great 
respect for it and care for its well-being, and to believe in a 
certain influence exercised by it over him. This would be his 
Totem. 
When the people of Ulawa were found to view the eating of 
bananas with horror, because to eat them would be the same 
thing as eating their ancestor, the banana would be pronounced 
to be the Totem of the natives of Ulawa. 
Clearest of all would be the Totems of the people of Florida, 
where one of the crab family might not eat the crab, and where 
the prohibition of some living object to the members of each clan 
would be explained by the belief that such object was the ancestor 
of the clan. 
But however readily these things may adjust themselves to a 
system of Totemism, as conceived in the European observer’s 
mind, it is the conception of them in the native mind, which is 
really of value ; and this is not very easy to apprehend. Investi- 
gation and examination does not seem to me to bring out more 
clearly the character of a Totem in any one of these examples. 
In Aurora and the Banks’ Islands the objects regarded as the 
origin or beginning of those who so regard them are in no way 
family or tribal marks ; they belong entirely to individuals. The 
family in Aurora named after the octopus, though it is believed 
