112 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



the Iban, the Kayan, and the Kenyah of the reality 

 of his special relation to some animal, and lead him 

 to respect all animals of some one species, produce 

 similar results in other parts of the world. We quote 

 the following passages from Mr. Frazer's remarks on 

 individual totems in his book on totemism : — " An 

 Australian seems usually to get his individual totem 

 by dreaming that he has been transformed into an 

 animal of that species." " In America the individual 

 totem is usually the first animal of which a youth 

 dreams during the long and generally solitary fast 

 which American Indians observe at puberty." Such 

 dream experiences are then the vera causa of the 

 inception of faith in individual totems among the 

 peoples in which totemism is most highly developed ; 

 and among the tribes of Sarawak we find cases 

 which illustrate how a similar faith, strengthened 

 by further dreams and by the good fortune of its 

 possessor, may spread to all the members of his 

 family or of his household and to his descendants, 

 until in some cases the guardian animal becomes 

 almost, though not quite, a clan-totem. The further 

 development of such incipient totems among these 

 tribes is probably prevented at the present time, 

 not only by their agricultural habits, but also by 

 their passionate addiction to war and fighting and 

 head-hunting; for these pursuits necessitate the 

 strict subordination of each community to its chief, 

 and compel all families to unite in the cult of the 

 hawk to the detriment of all other animal-cults, 

 because the hawk is, by its habits, so much better 

 suited than any other animal to be a guide to them 

 on warlike expeditions.^ 



^ Dr, Boas is of the opinion that the totems of the Indians of British Columbia 

 have been developed from the personal manitou, the guardian animals acquired 

 by youths in dreams. Miss A. C. Fletcher is led to a similar conclusion by 

 a study of the totems of the Omaha tribe of Indians {Import of the Totem, Salem, 

 Mass., 1897). The facts described above in connection with the Ngarong ol 

 the Ibans and similar allied institutions among other tribes of Sarawak would 

 seem, then, to support the views of these authors as to the origin of totemism. 



