792 



TOTEM 



[B. A. E. 



fauiial and the floral worlds, and give 

 evidence of a beneficent disposition by 

 adopting a person as a ward and protect- 

 ing him through life in return for some 

 kindness shown their incarnate and ter- 

 restrial representatives — the animals and 

 the plants and other objects of human 

 environment. They reveal themselves in 

 dreams and visions. Father Morice is of 

 the opinion that "totemism" among the 

 Dene is not asocial institution, but that it 

 is exclusively a religious cult; he is in- 

 clined to regard the clan patron spirit as 

 a mere extension of the cult of the per- 

 sonal tutelary, but assigns no satisfactory 

 reason for this belief. The owner of a 

 tutelary must circumspectly bear about 

 his person and openly exhibit in his 

 lodge the spoils of the animal denoted by 

 it — its entire skin, or only a part of it, or 

 a carved emblem of it; and imder no cir- 

 cumstances would anything induce him 

 wilfully to kill it, or at least to eat the 

 flesh of the being, the prototype of which 

 had become, as it were, sacred to him. 

 Its aid and protection are asked on all 

 important occasions and emergencies. It 

 would appear that this writer, in his at- 

 tempt to explain the clan patron, has 

 confused the fetish (honorific) with the 

 personal tutelary. The hidden power with 

 which the devotee believes he has thus 

 become possessed he calls coen in the 

 Carrier tongue, which signifies 'at the 

 same time magic and song;' tims closely 

 approximating the Iroquois orenda. 

 Morice (Ontario Arch. Rep., xviii, 208, 

 1905) relates that, in preparing himself 

 for practice, the shaman divests himself 

 of all his raiment and dons the spoils (a 

 bearskin, the claws of a grizzly bear, the 

 feathers of an owl, etc.) or the mask of 

 his fetish or tutelary. He states that 

 each of the Dene clans has a patron 

 spirit, an animal or other being, tra- 

 ditionally connected with the establish- 

 ment of these political and social units 

 in pristine times, and to which the 

 members of the clans paid great res{)ect 

 and even veneration. On ceremonial oc- 

 casions the entire clan is impersonated 

 by it, for it becomes the symbol or crest 

 of the clan. He adds that the personal 

 tutelary, common to both the eastern 

 and the western Dene, "being as indige- 

 nous to them as most of the institutions 

 in vogue among all the northern Amer- 

 ican Indians," is an essential element of 

 their religious system and does not affect 

 "society as such." 



Spinclen (Mem. Am. Anthr. Asso., ii, 

 241, 1908) writes that among the Nez Perce 

 Indians there is "a lack of anything like 

 a gens grouping," adding that the social 

 organization of the Shahaptian stock fur- 

 nishes excellent material for the study of 

 the simple development of a tribe, and 

 that "the tribes arose from the natural 



division of the stock according to the geo- 

 graphical areas." The Nez Perces sent 

 their children, both boys and girls, at 

 about 10 years of age, to the mountains 

 to fast and keep vigil, for the purpose of 

 acquiring, if possible, a guardian spirit. 

 But it is not everyone who succeeds in 

 obtaining such a tutelary. The name or 

 description of the thing seen is adopted 

 as a sacred name, which sometimes de- 

 noted some trophy of the hunt borne by 

 the imaginary animal seen in vision. 

 The imaginary being, thus obtained as a 

 tutelary, is believed to protect its pos- 

 ses.sor and to endow him with "certain 

 physical or mental qualities and pro- 

 nounced skill in certain things," espe- 

 cially those properties or qualities most 

 characteristic of the animal or object 

 seen. The Sun imparted wisdom and 

 mystic insight. There are certain re- 

 strictions in regard to the killing of the 

 guardian animal; and "the names and 

 the sacred songs obtained by vigil de- 

 scended through the famih'," some per- 

 sons inheriting as many as 10 or 15 songs 

 (p. 249). But it does not appear that the 

 guardian spirit itself was thus inherited. 

 The tutelary animal was not usually 

 named by its ordinary title, but by a 

 special name, and some have several such 

 cognomens (p. 268). In the case of 

 shamans, men and women, the guardian 

 beings were regarded as of a higher class 

 or order, as they commonly represented 

 objects from the heavens — the sun, the 

 moon, tlie clouds, the eagle, the fish- 

 hawk, and the crane. 



Speck (Elthn. Yuchi Indians, Anthr. 

 Pub. Univ. Pa., i, 70 et seq., 1909) says 

 that the Yuchi trace descent through the 

 female line and that therefore these 

 people have clans; that "the members 

 of each clan believe that they are rela- 

 tives and, in some vague way, the de- 

 scendants of certain preexisting animals 

 whose names and identity they now bear. 

 The animal ancestors are accordingly to- 

 temic. In regard to the living animals, 

 they, too, are the earthly types and de- 

 scendants of the preexisting ones, hence, 

 since they trace their descent from the 

 same sources as the human clans, the two 

 are consanguinely related," so that the 

 members of a clan feel obliged not to do 

 violence to the wild animal having the 

 form and name of their tutelaries. The 

 fiesh or fur of such animals may be ob- 

 tained from the members of other clans, 

 who are under no obligation not to kill 

 these animals. The idea of clan is ex- 

 pressed by the word yh^ta, 'on the house.' 

 Our authority adds that the different in- 

 dividuals of the clans inherited the pro- 

 tection of their clan totems when they 

 passed the initiation rites, thenceforth 

 retaining these as protectors through life. 

 As the members of clans are considered 



