388 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
The explanation given is as follows: a. Kipchaktamga: letter alip. 
b. Arguin tamga: eyes. c. Naiman tamnga: posts (of door). d. Kong- 
rat, Kirei, tamga: vine. e. Nak tamga: prop. /f. Tarakti tamga: 
comb. g. Tyulimgut tamga: pike. 
SECTION 2. 
GENTILE AND CLAN DESIGNATIONS. 
The clan and totemic system formerly called the gentile system un- 
doubtedly prevailed anciently in Europe and Asia, but first became 
understood by observations of its existence in actual force among the 
aborigines of America and Australia, and typical representations of it 
are still found among them. In Australia itis called kobong. An animal 
or a plant, or sometimes a heavenly body was mythologically at first 
and at last sociologically connected with all persons of a certain stock, 
who believe, or once believed, that it was their tutelar god and they 
bear its name. 
Each clan or gens took as a badge or objective totem the representa- 
tion of the tutelar daimon from which it was named. As most Indian 
tribes were zootheistic, the object of their devotion was generally an 
animal—e. g¢., an eagle, a panther, a buffalo, a bear, a deer, a raccoon, a 
tortoise, a Snake. or a fish, but sometimes was one of the winds, a celes- 
tial body, or other impressive object or phenomenon. 
American Indians once generally observed a prohibition against kill- 
ing the animai connected with their totem or eating any part of it. 
For instance, most of the southern Indians abstained from killing the 
wolf; the Navajo do not kill bears; the Osage never killed the beaver 
until the skins became valuable for sale. Afterward some of the ani- 
mals previously held sacred were killed; but apologies were made to 
them at the time, and in almost all cases the prohibition or taboo sur- 
vived with regard to certain parts of those animals which were not to 
be eaten on the principle of synecdoche, the temptation to use the food 
being too strong to permit entire abstinence. The Cherokee forbade the 
use of the tongues of the deer and bear for food. They cut these mem- 
bers out and cast them into the fire sacramentally. <A practice still 
exists among the Ojibwa as follows: There is a formal restriction 
against members of the bear clan eating the animal, yet by a subdivi- 
sion within the same clan an arrangement is made so that sub-clans 
may among them eat the whole animal. When a bear is killed, the 
head and paws are eaten by those who form one branch of the bear 
totem, and the remainder is reserved for the others. Other Indian 
tribes have invented a differentiation in which some clansmen may 
eat the ham and not the shoulder of certain animals, and others the 
shoulder and not the ham. 
It follows, therefore, that sometimes the whole pac is designated 
asa clan totem, and also that sometimes only parts of it is selected. 
