I 



ANIMAL WORSHIP AND ANIMAL TRIBES AMONG 

 THE ARABS AND IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 



THE importance of animal and plant worship for the study 

 of primitive society has been put beyond doubt by the 

 researches of Mr. J. F. M Lennan, of which only the first 

 outlines have been made public in his essay on &quot; The 

 Worship of Plants and Animals &quot; in the Fortnightly 

 Review for 1869, 1870. In his essay it is laid down as a 

 working hypothesis that the ancient nations came through 

 the Totem stage, or in other words that they came through 

 that peculiar kind of Fetichism which has its typical 

 representation among the aborigines of America and 

 Australia. The totem or kobong of these peoples is an 

 animal or plant or heavenly body appropriated as a fetich 

 to all persons of a certain stock. These persons believe 

 that they are descended from the totem, who is reverenced 

 as a protector and friend, and whose name they bear. The 

 line of descent is through the mother, who gives her totem 

 to her children. Persons of the same totem are not 

 allowed to marry. W T here the system exists in this typical 

 form every group necessarily contains persons of different 

 totems. But a change in the system of kinship along with 

 other circumstances may operate, as is seen in observed 

 instances, to produce homogeneous groups inheriting a 

 single totem and totem name from father to son. Again 

 the totem god of a dominant stock may come to command 

 the worship of all the tribes in a group, the other tribal 



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