TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 505 



social units— clans— which are distinguished by a sot of homologous features, 

 different in specific content, but identical in form. These features may be few 

 or many, and include clan and individual names, spiritual beliefs, myths, rituals, 

 material possessions, songs, dances, social regulations, prerogatives, &c In a 

 vast majority of cases these features are hereditary in the clan and form a 

 totemic complex. Before ethnologists can progress much further in the investi- 

 gation of totemic phenomena, a most careful analysis of the content and nature 

 of totemic complexes becomes imperative. 



The problems involved are manifold. In the totemic complex there is con- 

 siderable variability, both as to the number and the character of the individual 

 features. It is necessary to attempt to reconstruct the process of the association 

 of these various features, and of their socialisation within the limits of each one 

 of a number of definite and similar social units. The mutual relation of the 

 features at any given period in the development of the groups is another problem. 

 A preliminary survey of the data discloses a tendency of one or another or some 

 few features to assume a central position in the complex, thus lending a specific 

 colouring to the entire culture of the group. Among the tribes of the North- 

 West Coast of America the cycle of ideas associated with the guardian spirit 

 and the representation of totemic animals in art have become such dominant 

 features. Among some Bantu tribes of Africa, on the other hand, two features of 

 a very different order seem to occupy an equally prominent position. These are 

 the tabu on the totem, and property rights in land associated with totemic clans. 

 The totemic complexes of Central Australia, again, centre around the magical 

 ceremonies for the propagation of totems, and the beliefs of the natives in a 

 spiritual connection between the clansmen and their totemic ancestors. 



The specific functions carried by the various social units embraced in a 

 totemic complex also claim our attention. The clan of the Haida or Tlingit, 

 the clan of the Iroquois, the clan of the Aranda, differ vastly in their functions 

 as well as in their positions in the social organisations of the several groups. 

 The North-West Coast clan holds the exclusive right to certain ceremonies, 

 names, myths; it owns material property, hunting and fishing districts; the clans 

 of this area, moreover, differ in social rank. The Iroquois clans do not own 

 property(?), they do not differ in rank, but they exercise political functions 

 which are utterly foreign to the clans of the North- West Coast. Among the 

 Aranda, the clansmen are held together by little else than common ceremonies 

 and spiritual beliefs. In contrast to all these, some of the Baganda clans have 

 assumed the character of professional classas, a characteristic commonly identified 

 with social units of a totally different order, the castes of India. As to the 

 relative importance of the clans in their respective social organisations, witness 

 the contrast between the North-West Coast of America, where the sharply defined 

 clans practically carry the entire culture of the group, and the tribes of Central 

 Australia, where the clan is a loose social aggregate with naught but common 

 ceremonies and spiritual beliefs to determine its solidarity. 



Finally, the most fundamental, and in a sense the most significant, problem 

 of all is an intensive analytical and synthetic interpretation of the entire set of 

 socio-psychological conditions which make possible the appearance of phenomena 

 such as totemism. Of the possible results of such a study we have but the 

 faintest adumbration. 



(iii) Totemism as a Cultural Entity. By Dr. F. Graebner. 



Every attempt to account for the origin of totemism must first deal with the 

 ouestion whether this institution is a cultural entity, for if it be once conceded 

 that the forms of totemism found in different parts of the earth have arisen 

 independently there can be no justification for the assumption that it has had 

 everywhere the same origin. 



In the South Seas there are two wholly different social systems : (a) totemic 

 local exogamy with patrilineal descent, and (b) the arrangement in two exogamous 

 classes with matrilineal descent which, so far as locality is concerned, is often 

 endogamous. I have shown that these belong to two quite different cultures, and 

 that any intermediate forme are the result of contact and mixture. 



The same holds good for other regions. In Africa local totemism with 

 patrilineal descent is associated with cultural elements allied to those of the 



