TRIBAL SOCIETY 257 



represented as carrying with them one or more sacred 

 stones or churinga, each one of which was associated with 

 the spirit part of some individual. At the spots where 

 the ancestors originated and stayed, or at the camping- 

 places where they stopped during their wanderings, local 

 totem centers arose ; for at such spots a number of the 

 ancestors went into the ground with their churinga. 

 Their bodies died, but a tree or a rock arose to mark the 

 spot. But another spirit issues from the sacred tree or 

 rock and watches over the ancestral spirit. Among the 

 Kaitish it is believed that the ancestors leave behind them 

 spirit children who emanate from their bodies during the 

 performance of sacred ceremonies. These spirit children 

 are reborn by entering the bodies of women who pass 

 near the spots haunted by such spirits. Male children 

 dwell in rocks, trees, or mistle-branches ; female children, 

 in rock crevices. 43 



The contrast of totemic systems in these different ter- 

 ritories, Australia and British Columbia, reveals the fact 

 that each people has its own characteristic institution. 

 Indeed, any effort to show that totemism is invariably 

 associated with the five features mentioned is doomed to 

 failure. We are bound to recognize that primitive peo- 

 ples have their own individuality, as persons and collec- 

 tively. It is not possible to lump all savage peoples to- 

 gether and make dogmatic generalizations about them. 

 Primitive men have their own distinctive marks of cus- 

 tom and culture, just as modern men have, and sociologic- 

 ally we can distinguish many different types of social 

 structure just as physically we find different racial varie- 

 ties. 



The ceremonial activities of primitive peoples are, a 

 43 GoJdenweiser, op. eit. f p, 31, 



