566 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 2, 1902 
in the small islands there was a tendency to a territorial grouping 
of the kins. This localisation of a totem cult has proceeded one 
step further in Yam Island. Here we have a dual synthesis. 
The chief totem of each group of kins is practically alone 
recognised ; in other words, the various lesser totems are being 
absorbed by two more important totems, Each totem has a 
distinct shrine, and the totem itself, instead of being a whole 
species, is visualised in the form of a representation of an indi- 
vidual animal, and this image was spoken of as the totem 
(augud). Indeed, the tendency to concretism had gone so far 
that the life of the azgzad was supposed to reside in the stone 
that lay beneath the image,’ and certain heaps of shells were the 
navels of the totems, a further linkage of the totem to that spot 
of ground. 
A suggestion as to the significance of this transformation is 
not lacking. There are various folk-tales concerning a family 
of brothers who wandered from west to east across Torres 
Straits. Some of them were, in a mysterious way, sharks as 
wellas men. The two brothers who went to Yam were called 
Sigai and Maiau, and each became associated, in his animal 
form, with one of the two phratries. The shrines in the kwod 
were so sacred that no women might visit them, nor did the 
women know what the totems were like. They were aware of 
Sigai and Maiau, but they did not know that the former was the 
hammer-headed shark and the latter was the crocodile; this 
mystery was too sacred to be imparted to the uninitiated. When 
the totems were addressed it was always by their hero names, 
and not by their animal or totem names. 
Malu, another of these brothers, introduced the cult that bears 
his name to the Murray Islanders, who form part of the Eastern 
tribe. He also was identified with a hammer-headed shark. 
Totemism, as such, had practically disappeared from Murray 
Island before the advent of the white man, and the great 
ceremonies at the initiation of the lads into the Malu fraternity 
were a main feature of the religion of these people. 
In Yam totemism was merging into a hero cult ; in Murray 
Island the transformation was accomplished; the one had 
replaced the other. 
In Mabuiag, one of the Western Islands, there was a local 
hero named Kwoiam whose deeds are narrated in a prose epic. 
Kwoiam made two crescentic ornaments of turtle-shell, which 
blazed with light when he wore them at night-time, and which 
he nourished with the savour of cooked fish. These ornaments 
were called totems (azguad)—presumably because the natives did 
not know by what other sacred name to call them—and they 
became the insignia of the two groups of kins of Mabuiag. The 
crescent which was worn above Kwoiam’s mouth was regarded 
as the more important, and those kins which had land animals 
for their totems were called from it ‘‘the children of the great 
totem,” but the water group was called ‘‘the children of the 
little totem.” There is reason to believe that the dual grouping 
of the kins is ancient. The erecting Kwoiam’s emblems as the 
head totems of the two groups of kins must be comparatively 
recent. Here, again, the primitive association of a group of 
men with a group of natural objects obtains in the smal] groups 
or totem-kins, but in the larger synthesis a manufactured object 
replaces a group of animals, and this object possesses definite 
magical powers. There were two navel-shrines connected with 
the cult of Kwoiam, which were constructed to show that the 
two augud were born there. When it was deemed necessary to 
fortify the azgud—that is, the emblems—they were placed on 
their respective navel-shrines. Further, in Muralug and the 
adjacent islands Kwoiam himself was a totem (avgvd). Thus in 
the westernmost islands of the Western tribe the transition from 
totemism to hero-worship was in process of evolution till it was 
arrested by the coming of the white man. 
To what was this transformation due? It is not very easy to 
answer this question. We have evidence that in comparatively 
recent times a change took place in the social organisation of 
the people, and that the former matriarchal conditions had been 
replaced by patriarchal. Although superficially the marriage 
system of the Western tribe appears to be regulated by totemism, 
Dr. Rivers has found? that it is really a relationship system, and 
that descent, rather than totemism, is the regulating factor. The 
Eastern tribe, as represented by the Murray Islanders, had pro- 
_} For the keeping of a soul in an external receptacle, and for Dr. Frazer's 
views on its bearing on totemism, cf Fortnightly Review, May, 1899, 
p- 844; ‘The Golden Bough,” iii. 1900, pp. 418-422; and S. A. Cook, 
Jewish Quart. Review, 1902, p. 34 of reprint. 
_? “Reports Camb. Anthrop. Expedition to Torres Straits,” v. ‘‘ Kinship” 
(in the press). 
NO. 1718, VOL. 66} 
gressed further along this road than had the Western tribe. Such 
a change as this could not fail to have a disturbing effect upon 
other old customs. 
The folk-tales that I collected clearly indicate a migration of 
culture from New Guinea to the Western tribe, and from the 
Western tribe to the Eastern tribe. I believe I can demonstrate 
the migration from New Guinea of a somewhat broad-headed 
people that spread over the Western Islands but barely reached 
Murray Island. It is conceivable that the culture myths have 
reference to this migration, and that the gradual substitution of 
a hero cult for totemism may be part of the same movement ; 
but, on the other hand, this social and religious change is most 
thorough in Murray Island, where, I imagine, the racial move- 
ment has been least felt. The isolation of Murray Island from 
outside disturbing factors is very complete, and, being but a 
small island, a change once started might take place both 
rapidly and effectively. é 
It is interesting to note that the totem heroes of the Western 
tribe were invoked when their votaries were preparing to goto 
war. Iobtained the following prayer in Yam Island :—‘*‘O 
Augud Sigai and O Augud Maiau, both of you close the eyes of 
those men so that they cannot see us,” which had for its intent 
the slaughtering of the enemy without their being able to make 
a defence. I was informed that when the Yam warriors were 
fighting they would also call on the name of Kwoiam, who 
belonged to another group of islands, and on Yadzebub, a local 
warrior. Yadzebub was always described as a ‘‘ man,” whereas 
Kwoiam and Sigai were relegated to a ‘‘long time” back. 
From the folk-tales it is evident that Sigai and Maiau are more 
mythical or mysterious than Kwoiam. We thus have an in- 
structive series: Yadzebub, the local famous man ; Kwoiam, 
the hero, who was also a totem to other people ; and Sigai and 
Maiau, the local totem heroes whose cult was visualised in 
turtle-shell images, and the life of each of whom resided ina 
particular stone. Perhaps it would be more correct to speak of 
this as the grafting of a new cult on totemism rather than to 
describe it as an evolution of totemism. A transformation has 
certainly occurred, but it does not appear to me to be a gradual 
growth—a metamorphosis in the natural history sense of the 
term—so much as the pouring of new wine into old bottles. 
I hope on another occasion to deal with the question of re- 
ligious and secret societies, as the growth of these has invariably 
disintegrated whatever antecedent totemism there may have 
been. 
It is highly probable that something like what was taking 
place in Torres Straits has occurred elsewhere, but I cannot now 
enter into a comparative study of the rise of hero cults. 
Local or Village Exogamy. 
Ihave more than once (‘‘ Folk-lore,” xii. 1901, p. 233 ; ‘“‘ Head- 
hunters, Black, White, and Brown,” 1901, p. 258) called atten- 
tion to the fact that among some Papuans marriage restrictions 
are territorial and not totemic. Dr. Rivers (/owr2. Anthrop. 
Inst., xxx. 1900, p. 78) has shown that in Murray Island, 
Eastern tribe of Torres Straits, marriages are regulated by the 
places to which natives belong. A man cannot marry a woman 
of his own village or of certain other villages. The totemic 
system which probably at one time existed in this island 
appears to have been replaced by what may be called a 
territorial system. A similar custom occurs in the Mekeo- 
district of British New Guinea, and it is probably still more 
widely distributed. 
I was informed by a member of the Yaraikanna tribe of Cape 
York, North Queensland, that children must take the ‘‘land” 
or “country” of their mother; all who belong to the same 
place are brothers and sisters, a wife must be taken from another 
“€country ” (*‘Brit. Assoc. Report,” Dover, 1899, p. 585) ; thus 
it appears their marriage restrictions are territorial and not 
totemic. The same is found amongst the Kurnai and the 
Coast Murring tribe in New South Wales (Frazer, ‘‘ Totemism,” 
. 90). 
3 At Kiwai, in the delta of the Fly River, B.N.G., all the 
members of a totemic group live together in a long house 
which is confined to that group. I have also collected evidence 
which proves there was a territorial grouping of totemic clans 
among the Western tribe of Torres Straits (‘* Reports Camb. 
Anthrop. Expedition to Torres Straits,”’ v. in the press). 
Within a comparatively small area we have the following 
conditions :— 
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