146 



^ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Sept. 7, 1883. 



occasion of his last accident. Uis health has always been good. 

 Mr. Bryant was a great walker. In earlier years he would 

 think nothing of walking to I'atcrson Falls and back, with Alfred 

 Pell and James Lawson, after office hours. He always walked 

 from his home to his place of business, even in his eighty-fourth 

 year. At first he wouldn't ride in the elevator. He would never 

 wait for it, if it was not ready for the ascent immediately on his 

 arrival in the building. Of gymnastic exercises he was very fond. 

 Every morning, for half an hour, he would go through a series of 

 evolutions on the backs of two chairs, placed side by side. He 

 would hang on the door of his bedroom, pulling himself up and 

 down an indefinite nnmber of times. He would skirmish around 

 the apartment after all fashions, and once he told me even " under 

 the table." Breakfast followed, then a walk down town ; and then 

 he was in the best of spirits for the writing of his editorial article 



for that day He was a constant student. His daily leading 



editorial constituted, and was for many years, the Evening Post. 

 Sometimes he would not get it written until one o'clock. ' Can't I 

 have it earlier ? ' I asked him one day. ' Why not write it the 

 evening before ? ' 'Ah,' he replied, 'If I should empty out the 

 keg in that way, it would soon be exhausted.' He wanted his 

 evenings for study. ' Well, then, can't you get doAvn earlier in the 

 morning ? ' He said, ' Oh yes.' A few months afterwards he ex- 

 claimed, with reference to the change : ' I like it.' I go through 

 my gymnastics, walk all the way down, and when I get here I feel 

 like work. I like it.' " 



Mr. Boggs also stated that Mr. Bryant's sight and 

 hearing were scarcely impaired even up to his death. 



(To be cnntinvet.) 



THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH. 



By Edward Clodd. 

 XY. 



IN addition to the beliefs in the transformation of men 

 into animals and in the transmigration of souls into 

 the bodies of animals, we find among barbarous peoples a 

 belief which is probably the parent of one and certainly 

 nearly related to both, namely, in descent from the animal 

 or plant, more often the former, whose name they bear. Its 

 connection with transmigration is seen in the belief of the 

 Moquis, an Indian tribe, that after death they live in the 

 form of their totemic animal, those of the Deer family 

 becoming deer, and so on through the several clans. The 

 belief survives in its most primitive and vivid forms among 

 two races, the aborigines of Australia and the North 

 American Indians. The word " totemism,'' given to it 

 both in its religious and social aspects, is derived from 

 the Algonquin " dodaim " or " dodhaim," meaning " clan- 

 mark." Among the Australians, the word " kobong," 

 meaning " friend " or " protector," is the generic term for 

 the animal or plant by which they are known. It is akin 

 in significance to the Indian words " manitou," " oki," etc., 

 comprehending " the manifestations of the unseen world, 

 yet conveying no sense of personal unity," which are 

 commonly translated by the misleading word "medicine;" 

 hence, " medicine-men." 



The family name, or second name borne by all the tribes 

 in lineal descent, and which corresponds to our surname, 

 i.e., itiper noinen, or " over-name," is derived from names of 

 beasts, birds, &c., around which traditions of their trans- 

 formation into men linger. Sir Geo. Grey* says that there 

 is a mysterious connection between a native and his 

 kobong. It is his protecting angel, like the " daimon " of 

 Socrates, like the "genius" of the early Italian. "If it 

 is an animal, he will not kill one of the species to which it 

 belongs, should he iind it asleep, and he always kills it re- 

 luctantly and never without aitbrding it a chance of escape. 

 The family belief is that some one individual of the species 



" Travels in N.W. and W. Australia," Vol. II., 229. 



is their dearest friend, to kill whom would be a great 

 crime," as, in Hindu belief, when a Kajah was said to have 

 entered at death into the body of a fish, a " close time " 

 was at once decreed. Among the Indian tribes we find 

 well-nigh the whole fauna represented, their totem being 

 the Bear, Turtle, Deer, Hawk, Eagle, Pike, Buffalo, &c. 

 Like the Australians, these tribes regarded themselves as 

 being of the breed of their particular animal-totem, and 

 avoided hunting, slaying and eating (of which more presently) 

 the creature under whose form the ancestor was thought to 

 be manifest. The Chippeways carried their respect even 

 further. Deriving their origin from the dog, they at one 

 time refrained from employing their supposed canine 

 ancestors in dragging their sledges. The Bechuana and 

 other people of South Africa will avoid eating their tribe- 

 animal or wearing its skin. The same prohibitions are 

 found among tribes in Northern Asia, and the Vogulitzi of 

 Siberia, when they have killed a bear, address it formally, 

 maintaining " that the blame is to be laid on the arrows 

 and iron, which were made and forged by the Russians ! " 

 Among the Delawares the Tortoise gens claimed supremacy 

 over the others, because their ancestor, who had become 

 a fabled monster in their mythology, bore their world 

 on his back. The Californian Indians are in interesting 

 agreement with Lord Monboddo when, in claiming descent 

 from the prairie wolf, they account for the loss of their 

 tails by the habit of sitting, which, in course of time, 

 wore them down to the stump ! The Kickapoos 

 say their ancestors had tails, and that when they 

 lost them the " impudent fox sent every morning to 

 ask how their tails were, and the bear shook his fat sides 

 at the joke." The Patagonians are said to have a number 

 of animal deities, creators of the several tribes, some being 

 of the caste of the guanaco, others of the ostrich, &o. In 

 short, the group of beliefs and practices found among races 

 in the lower stages of culture point to a widespread common 

 attitude towards the mystery of life around them. In 

 speaking of totemism among the Red Races, Dr. Brinton 

 thinks that the free use of animate symbols to express 

 abstract ideas, which he finds so frequent, is the source of 

 a confusion which has led to their claiming literal descent 

 from wild beasts. But the barbaric mind bristles with 

 contradictions and mutually destructive conceptions ; 

 nothing is too wonderful, too bizarre for its acceptance, and 

 the belief in actual animal descent is not the most remark- 

 able or far-fetched among the articles of its creed. 



The subject of totemism is full of interest both on its 

 religious and social side : — 



On its religious side it has given rise, or, if this be 

 not conceded, impetus, to that worship of animals which 

 assuredly had its source in the attribution of mysterious 

 power through some spirit within them, making them deity 

 incarnate. 



On its social side it has led to prohibitions which are 

 inwoven among the customs and prejudices of civilised 

 communities. But, before speaking of these prohibitions, 

 the barbaric mode of reckoning descent should be noticed. 



The family name borne by any Australian tribe is per- 

 petuated Viy the children, whether boys or girls, taking 

 their mother's name. Precisely the same custom is found 

 among the American Indians — the children of both sexes 

 being of the mother's clan. Now, the family, as we define 

 it, does not exist in savage communities, nor, as Mr. 

 McLennan says in his very remarkable work on "Primitive 

 Marriage," had " the earliest human groups any idea of 

 kinship,. . . the phy.sical root of which could be discerned 

 only through observation and reflection." Where the 

 relations of the sexes were confused and promiscuous, the 

 oldest system in which the idea of blood-ties was expressed 



