2 30 TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY 



Nor must we part from this point without 

 alluding to the puzzling fact that, whilst some 

 totemists may not and do not eat their totem, 

 others not only eat it occasionally but believe 

 that their ancestors did so frequently and in large 

 quantities, and this with the idea in both cases 

 that to eat the animal is in some sense to become 

 the animal and, therefore, to gain greater power 

 over its race-fellows. This discrepancy of idea affords 

 a striking example of the difficulties which arise in 

 the path of anyone endeavouring to correlate savage 

 beliefs and draw wide generalizations from them. 



We cannot spare the space to consider the 

 question of the relation of decadent systems of 

 totemism to forms of what may be called religion, 

 but must content ourselves with calling attention 

 to the fact that there is some evidence as to a causal 

 nexus of this kind as, for example, in the region of 

 Torres Straits (see n, 18), where there are the 

 shrines of two brothers, called Sigai and Maiau, 

 who first appeared on the island as a hammer- 

 headed shark and a crocodile, but seem later on 

 to have assumed human attributes and are even 

 now known to women and uninitiated, who are 

 not allowed near the shrines, under their names 

 and not as animals at all. 



We must now turn to the subject of exogamy, 

 the consideration of which is so inextricably mixed 

 up with that of totemism. In its essence exogamy 

 means " marriage without," i.e., without the 

 tribe or clan, and to make things simple we may 

 say that it resolves itself into a less or more com- 

 plicated Table of Forbidden Degrees. 



