300 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 166. 



saw the Bear in their visions were liable to 

 be wounded in battle, as the bear was slow 

 of movement, clumsy and easily trapped, 

 although a savage fighter when brought to 

 bay. Winged forms, such as the Eagle, 

 having greater range of sight than the crea- 

 tures which traveled upon the ground, 

 could bestow upon the men to whom they 

 came in the dream the gift of looking into 

 the future and foretelling coming events. 

 Thunder gave the ability to control the ele- 

 ments, and the authority to conduct certain 

 religious rites. 



Despite the advantages to be derived 

 from the possession of certain totems, the 

 inculcations given when the youth was in- 

 structed in the rite of the vision, and 

 taught the prayer he was to sing, forbade 

 him to ask for any special gift, or the sight 

 of any particular thing ; he was simply to 

 wait without fear, and to accept without 

 question,whateverWa-ko»i'-da might vouch- 

 safe to send him. No man was able to 

 choose his personal totem, but it was the 

 general belief of the people that the power- 

 ful animals and agencies were apt to be 

 drawn toward those who possessed natural 

 gifts of mind and strength of will. 



Nature of the Totems. — The totems of the 

 Omahas referred to animals, the Bear, the 

 Buffalo, the Deer, the Birds, the Turtle 

 and Reptiles ; to the Corn ; to the elements, 

 the Winds, the Earth, the Water and 

 Thunder. There was nothing among them 

 which in any way represented the human 

 family, nor was there any trace of ancestor 

 worship ; the relation between the man and 

 his totem did not lie along the line of 

 natural kinship, but rested upon the pe- 

 culiarities in his theory of nature, in which 

 the will and ability to bring to pass, which 

 he was conscious of within himself, he pro- 

 jected upon the universe which encom- 

 passed him. The rite of the vision was a 

 dramatization of his abstract ideas of life 

 and nature, and the totem was the rep- 



resentation of the vision in a concrete 

 form. 



THE SOCIAL TOTEM AND WHAT IT STOOD FOE 

 IN THE TRIBE. 



We have thus far seen the influence of 

 the totem upon the individual. We are 

 now to trace it as exerted upon groups of 

 people ; in the religious societies ; in the 

 To?i'-WDw-gdho?i, or gens ; and in the de- 

 velopment and organization of the tribe. 



Religious Societies. — The totem's simplest 

 form of social action was in the religious 

 societies, whose structure was based upon 

 the grouping together of men who had 

 received similar visions. Those who had 

 seen the Bear made up the Bear society ; 

 those to whom the Thunder or Water be- 

 ings had come formed the Thunder or the 

 Pebble society. The membership came 

 from every kinship group in the tribe, blood 

 relationship was ignored, the bond of union 

 being a common right in a common vision. 

 These brotherhoods gradually developed a 

 classified membership with initiatory rites, 

 rituals and officials set apart to conduct 

 the ceremonials. 



The function of the totem in the societies 

 was intermediate between that of the indi- 

 vidual totem and the totem in its final 

 social office, where it presided over an arti- 

 ficial structure, in which natural conditions 

 were in part overruled and the people in- 

 evitably bound together. In some of the 

 tribes of the linguistic group to which the 

 Omahas belong, where the political struc- 

 ture of the gens is apparently weak and 

 undeveloped, the religious societies exist 

 and are powerful in their oi'ganization. 

 This fact, with other evidence which can- 

 not be detailed here owing to its complex 

 nature, together with the similarity trace- 

 able between the rituals and ceremonies of 

 these religious societies, and those incident 

 to the inauguration of gentile and tribal 

 ofiicers, makes it seem probable that the 



