742 REPORT— 1902. 



clearer when we consider that each man amono; these tribes acquires a guardian 

 spirit, but that he can acquire only such as belong to his clan. Thus a person 

 may have the general crest of hia clan, and besides use as his personal crest such 

 guardian spirits as he has acquired. This accounts partly for the great multi- 

 plicity of combinations of crests on the carvings of these people.' 



Throughout a considerable portion of North America there appears to be a 

 mixture of variously developed cults of the totem and of the manitu. It is not 

 perhaps possible at present to dogmatise as to the relative chronology of these 

 two cults. Personally I am in favour of the superior antiquity of the totem 

 cult, as the conception of an individual spirit-helper appears to me to be of a 

 higher grade than the ideas generally expressed by purely toteniic peoples, or 

 what may be gathered by implication from a study of their ceremonies. 



The social organisation appears to be very weak in some Califoruian tribes ; 

 our knowledge of the Seri in this respect is very meagre, but Dr. Dixon definitely 

 denies ' the existence of totemie grouping among the Maidu. 



Accepting then for the present the priority of the totem cult, we find a 

 substratum of totemism underlying many of the social organisations in North 

 America. Religious societies are a noticeable feature of the social life of North- 

 west America ; those societies have the guardian spirit {manitu) as their central 

 idea, but it appears as if the organisation is rooted in a clan'-* system which has 

 been smothered and virtually destroyed by the parasitic growth. The problems 

 to be solved in North-west America are very complicated, and we must await 

 with patience further researches. It is perfectly evident from the researches of 

 Boas, Nelson, Hill-Tout, and others that comparatively recent great changes 

 have taken place. Dr. Boas indeed states that ' the present ."lystem of tribes and 

 clans (of the Kwakiutl) is of recent growth and has undergone considerable 

 changes.' ^ An interesting illustration of this is found in the alteration in the 

 organisation of the (Kwakiutl) tribe during the season of the winter ceremonial. 

 'During this period the place of the clans is taken by a number of societies, namely, 

 the groups of all those individuals upon whom the same or almost the same 

 power or secret has been bestowed by one of the spirits.'* The characteristic 

 North American idea of the acquisition of the ^nanif.u was evidently also funda- 

 mental among the Kwakiutl, as all their tales refer to it, and the whole winter 

 ceremonial is based on it. 



I agree in the main with Mr. Hartland^ in thinking that, 'whether or no 

 totemism was anciently a part of the tribal organisation, the manitu conception is 

 of modern date. It is part of the individualism which is tending, not among 

 these tribes only, to obscure the older communistic traditions.' 



Nyarong. 



Allied to the manitu of North America is the nyarong, or spirit helper, of the 

 Iban (Sea Dayaks) of Sarawak. The Iban believe that the spirit of some ancestor 

 or dead relative may come to them in a dream, and this ni/arong becomes the 

 special protector of the individual. An Iban youth will often retire to some lonely 

 spot or mountain-top and live for days on a very restricted diet in his anxiety to 

 obtain a vision. This custom is called mampok. On the following day the 

 dreamer searches for the outward and visible form of the nyarong, which may 

 be anything from a curious natural object to some one animal. In such cases the 

 nyarong hardly differs from a fetish. In other cases, as the man is unable to 

 distinguish the particular animal which he believes to be animated by his nyarong, 

 he extends his regai-d and gratitude to the whole species. In some instances all 

 the members of a man's family and all his immediate descendants, and if he be a 

 chief all the members of the community over which he rules, may come to share 

 the benefits conferred by the nyarong and pay respect to the species of animal in 

 one individual of which it is supposed to reside. ' In such cases,' Drs. Hose and 



' Bull. Amer. Miis. Nat. Hist., xvii., pt. 2, 1902, p. 35. 



- Matriarchal totemie kin. ' Z.c, p. 333. 



■• Z.c, p. 418. 5 Folk-lore, xi. p. G8. 



