THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. 245 



vvilderiug, that it is difficult to trace the mutual influences of the dift'er- 

 ent ethnic groups. In nothing, however, more than in the totemic or- 

 ganization do we recognize these differences. 



TOTEMISM. 



The organization of consanguineal kindred is variously called the 

 totem, the clan, the totem clan, or the gens (plural, gentes). Frazer, in 

 his work on Totemism, thus defines it : * 



A totem is a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious re- 

 spect, believing that there exists between him and every member of the class an in- 

 timate and altogether special relation. * * * The connection between a man and 

 his totem is mutually beneficent ; the totem protects the man, and the man shows 

 his respect for the totem in various ways, by not Mlling it if it be an animal, and not 

 cutting or gathering it if it be a plant. 



Considered in relation to men, totems are of at least three kinds : (1) The clan to- 

 tem, common to a whole clan, and passing by inheritance from generation to genera- 

 tion; (2) the sex totem * * * (^3) The individual totem, belonging to a single 

 individual and not passing to his descendants. * * * 



The clan totem. — The clan totem is reverenced by a body of men and women who 

 call themselves by the name of the totem, believe themselves to be of one blood, de- 

 scendants of a common ancestor, and are bound together by common obligations to 

 each other, and by a common faith in the totem. Totemism is thus both a religious 

 and a social system. In its religious aspect it consists of the relations of mutual re- 

 spect and protection between a man and his totem ; in its social a spect it consists of 

 the relations of the clansmen to each other and to men of other clans. In the later 

 history of totemism these two sides, the religious and the social, tend to part com- 

 pany. "• * * On the whole, the evidence points strongly to the conclusion that the 

 two sides were originally inseparable ; that, in other words, the further we go back 

 the more we should find that the clansman regards himself and his totem as beings of 

 the same species, and the less he distinguishes between conduct towards his totem and 

 towards his fellow-clansmen. 



Tribal Society. — These totems, clans, or gentes are sometimes organ- 

 ized into groups called phratries. the union of the latter forming the 

 tribe or people. We have, therefore, (1) the household or family; (2) 

 the totem ; (3) the phratry ; and (4) the tribe. 



On the northwest coast the household is not the unit of the totem or 

 of the phratry, as more than one totem is represented in each; the father 

 belonging to one totem and the mother and children to another. Besides 

 this, a brother and his wife may belong to the household, or a sister and 

 her husband ; thus numerous totems may be represented under one roof. 



The practice of totemism on the northwest coast has not yet received 

 the thorough study it deserves. It remains for some organization, 

 governmental or incorporated, to systematically collect the data nec- 

 essary for a complete tabulation of the phratries and gentes of all the 

 tribes, and an exposition of their mutual relations and significance. In 

 connection with this, a study of the totemic carvings, legends, myths, 

 and folk-lore, must be prosecuted. The lists of totems from time to time 

 published have served so far to obscure rather than elucidate the sub- 



* Totemism p. I, sq. 



