328 SACRED FISH 
Herodotus ! states that only two fishes are venerated, the 
Lepidotus and the Phagrus. The Father of History is not 
open in this case to the charge of exaggeration, for with these 
the Oxyrhynchus, and (according to Strabo) the Lates niloticus, 
and (according to Wilkinson) the M@otes should be included. 
Various reasons are assigned for the veneration, local if not 
national, of these particular fishes. Wilkinson suggests, with 
UZAN!| i§VAE) IEVAATT I 
Pees Q =" 
THE OXYRHYNCHUS TAKING THE PART OF THE USUAL BIRD-SOUL, 
From Ahmed Bey Kamal, Annales du Service des Antiquités de VE gypt. 
a touch of ironical humour—“ the reason of their sanctity (2.e. 
the Oxyrhynchus and Phagrus) was owing to their being un- 
wholesome: the best way of preventing their being eaten was 
to assign them a placeamong the sacred animalsof the country!” 
Some writers detect in their sanctity a remnant of local 
Totemism, a word which in blessedness equals and in length 
of inadequate definition surpasses Mesopotamia.? 
1 II. 72. 
2 For a description, not a definition of Totemism, see Robertson Smith, 
loc: cit., or J. G. Frazer’s four volumes on Totemism and Exogamy. The Oxford 
Dictionary for once is not very helpful in, ‘‘ Totemism, the use of Totems, 
with a clan division, and the social, marriage, and religious customs connected 
with it,” 
