boas] TSIMSHIAN SOCIETY 517 



study all the customs connectedly, in their weaker form as well as 

 in their most marked totemic forms. 



The second reason that seems to me to forbid generalization is that 

 certain mental conditions may bring about the development of 

 analogous forms arising from distinct sources. Thus I do not feel 

 convinced that the substratum of Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian 

 totemism must have been the same. On the contrary, there seems 

 to be evidence showing that then - beghinings may have been quite 

 different. Still, historical contact, and the effect of the idea of 

 privilege attached to position, seem to have molded the totemic 

 customs of these tribes and of their southern neighbors, so that they 

 have assumed similar forms. We call tins development from distinct 

 sources "convergence," no matter whether the assimilation is brought 

 about by psychic or by historical causes. 



In order to state my position in regard to the theoretical problem 

 definitely, I have to add a third point. Wundt * and Durkheim 2 use 

 the term "totemic viewpoint" in a sense quite different from the one 

 that I am accustomed to connect with it. While they do not dis- 

 regard the connection between social group and totemic ideas, they 

 lay stress upon the identification of man and animals; that is, a 

 characteristic feature of totemism in the most restricted sense of the 

 term. This idea occurs in many other aspects of the mental life of 

 man, — in his magic, art, etc. Neither is tins view an essential part of 

 the totemic complex in its widest sense. It seems to me that if we 

 call this the basis of totemic phenomena, one trait is singled out quite 

 arbitrarily, and undue stress is laid upon its totemic association. It 

 appears to me, therefore, an entirely different problem that is treated 

 by these authors, — a problem interesting and important in itself, but 

 one which has little bearing upon the question of totemism as a social 

 institution. Their problem deals with the development of the con- 

 cepts referring to the relation of man to nature, which is obviously 

 quite distinct from that of the characterization of kinship groups. 

 The only connection between the two problems is that the concepts 

 referring to the relation of man to nature are applied for the purpose 

 of characterizing social, more praticularly kinship groups. 



I am inclined to look at the totemic problem as defined before in a 

 quite different manner. Its essential feature appears to me the 

 association between certain types of ethnic activities and kinship 

 groups (in the widest sense of the term), in other cases also a sinhlar 

 association with groups embracing members of the same generation 

 or of the same locality- Since, furthermore, exogamy is characteristic 

 of kinship groups, endogamy of generation groups or local groups,such 

 essential feature comes to be the association of varying types of ethnic 



' Volkerpsychologie, vol. n, part 2 (1906), pp. 238 tt srq.: Klemente ilei VSlkerpsychologie, 1912, pp. IK 

 - l.e^ formt'^'irmenuiin^ ,!,■ hi vir religieuse. 



