246 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



clan, and hereditary; the sex totem, one common to all 

 males, another common to all females, of a tribe ; and the 

 individual totem, belonging to a single individual, and 

 not hereditary. Moreover, totemism is to be distin- 

 guished from fetishism. A totem is a class of objects. 

 If the eagle is the totem of a clan, all eagles are held in 

 sacred veneration by all members of the clan. A fetish 

 is an individual object, not a class of objects. 18 



We first noted that totemism is related to exogamy. 

 In British Columbia the local clan or family is the im- 

 portant social unit among the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, 

 and Kwakiutl. 19 The Tlingit people comprise fourteen 

 divisions each consisting of several towns. At the pres- 

 ent time there are two strictly exogamous phratries, with 

 descent through the mother. These phratries are sub- 

 divided into clans which generally derive their names 

 from the locality they originally occupied, "Of the 

 Island of Teqo," "Of the House in the Middle of the 

 Valley," etc. 20 Among the Haida we find two exogamous 

 metronymic clans. The members of one clan are re- 

 garded as closely related, and marriage between persons 

 of the same clan is viewed by them with almost the same 

 abhorrence as incest is looked upon by us. 21 The 

 Tsimshian clans are also exogamous and metronymic. 

 The northern Kwakiutl are organized like the Tsimshian, 

 with the exception of descent, which is both maternal and 

 paternal. The system of descent among the southern 

 Kwakiutl presents an interesting example of what is 



is Frazer, op. cit., pp. 2, 15, 53, 56. 



19 Boas, F. Internationaler Amerikanisten Kongress Stuttgart, 1904, 

 vol. xiv, pp. 141-148. 



20 Swanton, J. R. Racial Conditions, Beliefs, and Linguistic Relationship 

 of the Tlingit Indians, 26th. Report Bureau Amer. Ethnology, pp. 396-399. 



21 Ibid. 



