The “tortoise” on the coins of Aegina has been mythologised as an emblem of Aphrodite, but the connection is not very intimate. According to a fragment of Ephorus, the Aeginetans took to commerce on account of the barrenness of their island. But they must have had something to give in exchange to the people before they could have developed a carrying trade, and Professor Ridgeway suggests that the tortoise on the coins of Aegina simply indicates that the old monetary unit of that islandwas the shell of the turtle (“tortoise-shell”), which was considerably larger, and therefore more valuable for making bowls than that of the land or mountain tortoise. The earliest coins represent a turtle, for the feet are flippers quite distinct from the legs of the later tortoises; also the thirteen plates of the dorsal shield, or carapace, are not so distinct in the turtle as in the tortoise, and in the older coins these plates are not represented. The earliest coins, too, have the incuse on the reverse divided into eight triangular compartments, which may indicate the eight plates of the ventral shield, or plastron, of all these animals.
The same line of argument applies to the Bœotian shield, which has been confidently pronounced to be a sacred emblem, but which we must now regard as a numismatic symbol of a real shield. On the reverse of these coins the incuse forms a rudeX, bounded by a circle of dots, which probably represents the back of the shield, as the frame of an ox-hide shield consists of a circular rod with two crossbars.
“The idea of making the incuse represent the other side of the object given in relief on the obverse seems to be just the stage between a complete representation of the object, as in the tunny of Olbia, and that evinced by the early coins of Magna Græcia, on which the reverse gives in the incuse exactly the same form as that in relief on the obverse.”
The silphium plant of Cyrene, which yielded a salubrious but somewhat unpleasant medicine, has also been held to have a mythological symbolism, and without any evidence it has been foisted on to the hero Aristacus, “the protector of the corn-field and the vine and all growing crops, and bees and flocks and shepherds, and the averter of the scorching blasts of the Sahara.” “It seems far more reasonable to treat it on the same principle as the others just discussed. The silphium formed the most important article produced in that region, and it is perfectly inaccordance with all analogy that certain quantities of this plant, and of the juice extracted from it, should be employed as money. At the present moment tea is so employed on the borders of Tibet and China, and raw cotton in Darfur.”
Professor Ridgeway argues that the same holds good for representations of cattle on coins—the image of the cow or the ox indicates that the gold piece so marked is a substitute for that animal.
These researches of Professor Ridgeway’s have thrown a new light on some of the images on Greek coins. He has transferred the symbolism of this class of coinage from the domain of religion to that of merchandise—from god to mammon.[140]
Forthe sake of simplicity, in the Introduction I included in the term Religion the relation of man to unseen powers. These have always been recognised, and man has everywhere attempted to put himself into sympathetic relation with them. It is, however, preferable to distinguish between Sympathetic Magic and Religion proper, as the former is impersonal and the latter is essentially personal in its operation.
Sympathetic magic is, so to speak, the primitive protoplasm out of which natural science has been evolved, in much the same way as, together with ancestor-worship and totemism, it lies at the base of most religious systems.
As Mr. J. G. Frazer has pointed out,[141]primitive man has the germ of the modern notion of natural law, or the view of nature as a series of events occurring in an invariable order without the intervention of personal agency. This germ is involved in that sympathetic magic which plays a large part in most systems of superstition.
One of the principles of sympathetic magic, or signature lore as it is sometimes called, is that any effect may be produced by imitating it. If it is wished to kill a person,an image of him is made and then destroyed; and it is believed that through a certain physical sympathy between the person and his image, the man feels the injuries done to the image as if they were done to his own body, and when it is destroyed he must simultaneously perish.
Sometimes the magic sympathy takes effect, not so much through an act as through a supposed resemblance of qualities. Some Bechuana warriors wear the hair of an ox among their own hair and the skin of a frog on their mantle, because a frog is slippery and the ox from which the hair has been taken has no horns and is therefore hard to catch; so the warrior who is provided with these charms believes that he will be as hard to hold as the ox and the frog.
“Thus we see,” continues Mr. Frazer, “that in sympathetic magic one event is supposed to be followed necessarily and invariably by another, without the intervention of any spiritual or personal agency. This is, in fact, the modern conception of physical causation; the conception, indeed, is misapplied, but it is there none the less. Here, then, we have another mode in which primitive man seeks to bend nature to his wishes. There is, perhaps, hardly a savage who does not fancy himself possessed of this power of influencing the course of nature by sympathetic magic.... Of all natural phenomena there are perhaps none which civilised man feels himself more powerless to influence than the rain, the sun, and the wind. Yet all these are commonly supposed by savages to be in some degree under their control.”
Magic practices are, as a rule, primarily a kind of mimetic representation combined with crude symbolism, or the latter alone may be employed, as in the previously mentioned Bechuana custom.
We may regard pictorial representation of magic as probably indicating a higher stage of culture.
Mr. H. Vaughan Stevens has recently made a number of valuable observations in the Malay Peninsula; these have beenedited by A. Grünwedel,[142]and they throw a new light on the importance of decorative art in the psychic life of savages. The Sĕmang tribes are negritto in origin, that is, they belong to the short, dark, frizzly-haired stock which probably were the original inhabitants of that part of the world, and are consequently a more primitive people than the Malays.
The Sĕmang tribes, especially the Orang Panggang of East Malacca, possess a kind of picture writing which, on the one hand, serves to record mythological representations, name-marks, etc., upon objects made of bamboo; on the other hand it forms the foundation of complicated magic patterns which these tribes are accustomed to employ as a means of protection against illnesses. But in so far as these patterns are incised in the bamboo as prescriptions for the healing herbs to be employed, apart from the protecting charm which lies directly in them, those elements which go to make them up can also be described as a kind of writing.
The magic patterns of the pure Sĕmang from East Malacca are found on three classes ofobjects—
The combs are worn throughout the whole Sĕmang district, but on the western side of the mountain chain of the Peninsula, from Kĕdah to Pêrak, these are used more as ornament, and the originals for the composition of the patterns are forgotten.
The patterns on the combs exhibit flowers, or the principalparts of flowers, which serve as simples against the disease. The combs are only used by women against invisible sickness, etc., such as fever; for injuries and wounds such as those caused by a falling bough in the jungle, or the bite of a centipede, other means are employed. The combs are not used for combing the hair. The women wear eight combs, sometimes even sixteen, which are placed horizontally with the teeth embedded in the hair and the handles projecting outwards; when eight are worn, two are inserted in the front, back, and sides of the head.
The choice of combs depends upon—(1) The diseases which are raging near the tribe; (2) the diseases which are most feared; and (3) the number of women there are together.
According to the Sĕmang, the winds bring these sicknesses with them as the punishment for some sin which Keii, the thunder-god, wishes to revenge. The wind-demon, which is sent by Keii on this message, blows over the head of the person and deposits the sickness on the forehead, from whence it spreads over the body. The god Plê, however, gives to the Sĕmang a magical remedy which the winds dare not approach, and so the impending punishment is turned aside. If a woman is protected by the right comb and the wind blows upon her head, the demon meets the odour of thewâsand falls down to the ground. If thewâscharm fails thepâwêrcharm comes to the rescue, so that the demon cannot get any further, and recognising Plê’s power, it falls down and is carried away by the wind. If the illness comes from behind it is held back bymos, that is the representation which runs across the comb at the insertion of the teeth. The calyx of a flower is calledmos, and exactly as the flower lies embedded in its calyx, so the parts of the handle namedwâsandpâwêrreach under themosline, although one cannot see them, and are there just as effective as above.
When several women meet they wear different combs toprotect themselves and others from all kinds of diseases. Differentwâspatterns are necessary, as each sickness has its own wind, and the wind does not bring any or all diseases. As a rule awâsis necessary for each disease, without, however, excluding others, but sometimes it does for about six. It does not often happen that the Sĕmang carves upon a comb a pattern for any other than the one object in view.
The Sĕmang women usually possess from twenty to thirty combs, and they lend them to one another. When in the huts and at night they lay them under the roof. They are buried with the owner to keep the diseases from the spirit which have been averted during life.
As to the origin of the custom, the Sĕmang unanimously declare that the patterns of the combs were the invention of the god Plê for themselves, and were not borrowed from any other folk. In former times the combs had only three teeth. The teeth are merely a means for fastening. The men wear no combs as their hair is kept short. Their magical remedies are thegor’sandgar’s. They say that in very ancient times women carried bamboo sticks on which were cut the whole seventy disease patterns. Thegiwere stuck in the girdle.
The diseases for which the combs are effective attack women only, and these, the men say, are mostly imaginary. Illnesses which attack both men and women are kept off by the quivers and blow-pipes (sumpit) of the men, as the women are generally not very far off from the men.
The handle of a typical comb is divided into eight transverse bands, each of which has its own name. Above the broad central band (tîn-wêg) are four narrow bands, while below it are three narrow bands. The first and second band of the upper series are called respectivelywâsandpâwêr. The uppermost line, abovewâs, is calledtĕpî, the lowest line below the eighth band (nos), and immediately above the teeth, is calledmos.
Fig. 117.—Blossom of an Ixora; from Stevens.
Fig. 117.—Blossom of an Ixora; from Stevens.
Fig. 117.—Blossom of an Ixora; from Stevens.
Wâsandpâwêrare the protecting figures, whose charm keeps off the diseases.Tĕpî, pâwêrandmosare also parts of a flower,wâsis the scent, the stamens and pistil are calledtĕpî, the line in the comb above the wâs band has the same name, the lengthened tube above the green calyx is known aspâwêrand the calyx asmos. Two jungle flowers now serve aspâwêr, one a kind of Ixora, but the botanical name of the other has not been identified.
Figs. 118, 119.—Magic combs of the Orang Sĕmang; from Stevens.
Figs. 118, 119.—Magic combs of the Orang Sĕmang; from Stevens.
Figs. 118, 119.—Magic combs of the Orang Sĕmang; from Stevens.
In Figs.118and119we have two combs of the Orang Sĕmang, which illustrate the method of decoration. They are intended for two different diseases, the nature of either of which is obscure. The pattern in thetîn-wêgband of Fig.118evidently represents the magical flower. Thewâspattern in Fig.119is faulty, it is etched in the original comb as in the upper band of Fig.120: Whereas the elementsA,B,Cshould have been engraved, as in lower band of Fig.120. Such slight mistakes as these in the decoration of a comb may render the magic pattern of no avail against the appropriate disease.
Fig. 120.—Diagram of the uppermost pattern of Fig. 119, with rectification of that pattern; from Stevens.
Fig. 120.—Diagram of the uppermost pattern of Fig. 119, with rectification of that pattern; from Stevens.
Fig. 120.—Diagram of the uppermost pattern of Fig. 119, with rectification of that pattern; from Stevens.
If one looks through the patterns which representwâsandpâwêrone speedily finds that many are identical with each other, or are parts of the patterns in the fifth band (tîn-wêg) which represent the illness. The following account is given in explanation of this: as the magic patterns were made by Plê, he wished, as he settled one pattern for a definite disease, at the same time to make it known which flower blooms most freely at the time when the illness rages, and he gave to both a similar form. Ifwâsandpâwêrwere obliged to get exactly the same figure, in order to prevent confusion of the patterns with one another, he ordained that differentiating marks should be added on the comb.
For us, who do not see the patterns with Sĕmang eyes, many deviations appear in the figures. One reason for this is that the patterns of the combs are mostly incised by young men and not by the older men, as is the case with the quivers and blow-pipes. The young men, unskilled in carving, and not always perfectly acquainted with the patterns, cut the combs for their sisters and future wives. One mistake in the pattern does not necessarily do away with the efficacy of a comb, as a Panggang man once said, “It is like a gap or hole in a bird-trap: the bird can hop through it, but it is always a question whether it sees the gap.”
All the figures of the combs, except thewâs,pâwêr, andtîn-wêgmust be of the very simplest kind. The rule is that they are borrowed from awâsorpâwêrpattern, but the special characters must be omitted. The youths who copy the combs overlook this and insert in the neighbouring bands the completewâsandpâwêrpatterns.
The magicians engrave various devices on pieces of bamboo, and, as will be seen from the following examples, these magic staves are supposed to be effectual for a great many difficulties and adversities.
Fig. 121.—Magical pictograph of the Orang hûtan against the stings of scorpions and centipedes; size of original 9¾ inches; from Stevens.
Fig. 121.—Magical pictograph of the Orang hûtan against the stings of scorpions and centipedes; size of original 9¾ inches; from Stevens.
Fig. 121.—Magical pictograph of the Orang hûtan against the stings of scorpions and centipedes; size of original 9¾ inches; from Stevens.
Fig.121.—This bamboo shows as its middle figure an Argus pheasant with its two long ocellated tail-feathers.The wheel-like patterns atArepresent these eye-marks, the angular marks atBare the wings of the animal. Left of the Argus is a long, orange-coloured centipede. The head of the animal is drawn in the direction towards the tail of the Argus. The lines with little dots on each side to the right and left of the centipede are the tracks which that animal leaves on the skin of a man. Two blue scorpions are represented on the other side of the Argus. The figure at the end of their tails is a swelling in the flesh of a person who has been stung by them. The female of this kind of scorpion is more poisonous than the male, and is said to cause double stings. Therefore the marks with two rows of points atCdenote the sting of the female, that with one row atDthat of the male.
The significance of this bamboo is, “as the Argus pheasant feeds on centipedes and scorpions, so its help is invoked against them by striking the bamboo against the ground.”
Fig. 122.—Magical device of the Orang Bĕlendas against a skin disease; size of original 19 inches; from Stevens.
Fig. 122.—Magical device of the Orang Bĕlendas against a skin disease; size of original 19 inches; from Stevens.
Fig. 122.—Magical device of the Orang Bĕlendas against a skin disease; size of original 19 inches; from Stevens.
Fig.122represents the devices etched on a piece ofbamboo against two forms of a skin disease—the one exhibits leprous white ulcers, the other hard knots on and under the skin. The lowermost marking,A, when one holds the bamboo with the open end uppermost, represents the bank of a river, in which frogs have sunk holes. The dots and lines are these holes imprinted in the soft slime, some being under the water, others being above it. The zigzag lines atBrepresent frog’s legs; these limbs of the animal are abbreviations for the whole animal, which is always conventionalised. Over these frogs one sees atCa pattern which is used to represent different things; for example: (1) an ant-hill; (2) a Hantu of an illness in the human body, whose effect is felt like the crawling and biting of ants, and indeed this Hantu lives in forsaken ant-hills; (3) the skin marked by this disease; or (4) even the seeds of a melon, cucumber, etc. Here the figure represents an ant-hill on the ground. Out of the ground there grow climbing plants (D), whose winding round the trees is represented by the lines forming the ovals; the little lines between these egg-shaped figures represent the body of the partially very voluminous lianas. The little lines on the outside of the twists when they are long represent thorns; but when they are mere points they indicate the tracks of insects’ claws on the bark. In our picture, as the lines are midway between long streaks and dots, they represent ants in two groups, which are running up and down the lianas. Immediately under the line aboveDone sees four figures (1-4), which are respectively a bird, a butterfly, a caterpillar, and a tree-frog. The band atEindicates a tree. The figures are to be read off from right to left, commencing at the vertical linex, which represents the trunk of the tree without leaves; to the left are five similar figures, which are the fully developed leaves of the tree. To the left is a dark beam with leaf-marks on the right side only, these are the undeveloped young leaves at the top of the tree. Further to the left is a darkbeam, on each side of which are zigzags (y y); these are branches.
The black line to the left atz, z,represents the end of the lianas which are drawn inD; these having sprung from the ground have reached the branches of the tree.
To the left of this is the topmost part of the tree, with undeveloped leaf-shoots on the left side. The sudden dwindling of this line is to show the tapering of the tree stem towards its top.
Above this the patternCis repeated, and the three rows above the line show the spots on the skin, which are supposed to look like melon seeds; the rows respectively stand for the head, body, and feet which are thus affected.
Lastly, fish-scales are drawn to represent the leprous form of the disease; these are also in three rows for the head, body, and feet. They increase in size in order to show that they will gradually spread over the whole body if not cured in some way. Just at the place where the different rows of patterns end (when one reads from left to right) there is a group of dots on the scales, which represent the last stage of the disease; incurable holes out of which blood flows. They are supposed to be like the wounds caused by the stings of any kind of poisonous fish. These holes seldom appear on the legs.
The whole drawing is the remnant of an ancient pattern which was employed as a charm by the old magicians of theOrang Bĕlendas. The object of the pattern is even at the present time known to the laity, but the story is probably lost as to how the figures came to be put together in this way.
Fig. 123.—Rain-charm of the Orang Bĕlendas; size of the original 10½ inches; from Stevens.
Fig. 123.—Rain-charm of the Orang Bĕlendas; size of the original 10½ inches; from Stevens.
Fig. 123.—Rain-charm of the Orang Bĕlendas; size of the original 10½ inches; from Stevens.
Fig.123is a copy of a “toon-tong,” which the man who owned it would not sell to Mr. Stevens. Its use is to produce rain when the paddy-fields are suffering from an insufficient monsoon.
The oblique lines represent the rain driven by the wind, the lines being the downpour and the dots are the rain-drops. The lines from left to right stand for the north-east, and those from right to left for the south-west monsoon. The curved lines mean a storm. The repetition of the rain-figures means “much rain.”
Next to the rain on the right is a double row of tortoise[143]eggs (double=many), as indicative of the tortoise, which is a representative of dampness, moisture, and mud.
The middle row of figures represents young “piyung” fruit. Thepiyunghas fruit when the rainy season begins, and loses the ripe fruit at its close. Hence it is drawn as symbolic of the rainy season. There now are, as a matter of fact, piyung trees that have fruit in the other months. Stevens showed some of these to the Orang Bĕlendas, and was informed that in the time of their ancestors the piyung trees had ripe fruit at the rainy season. Whether that was the case in their original home, or whether another variety existed, has yet to be settled. Probably the tradition of the Orang Bĕlendas is correct, even if it cannot be cleared up on all points.
The decoration of one bamboo is a formula to enable a man who wishes to build a house to easily find the necessary materials. Below is a band filled with cross-hatching, like trellis-work, meant for the wall of a house, and standing for the whole house; above this are several very diagrammatic representations of burnt trees which have remained after thefiring of the jungle, a forked branch of tree which is used as a prop, palm leaves for thatching, etc. The rest of the bamboo is divided into longitudinal bands, most of which look like attempts at decorative patterns, but they really signify a liana with many leaves, the frame-work of the roof of the house, a ladder, split leaves interlaced for thatching rattans, while a zigzag line means the long path which goes from side to side, and thus indicates the obstacles which befall the leaves for the thatch whilst they are being carried through the jungle.
One design is supposed to protect the harvest and the plantations round the house from injurious animals. In it is represented a very diagrammatic house. On the one side are plants with tubers growing on the sides of a hill, for the Orang Bĕlenda generally clear the sides of a hill for their plantations and houses. On the other side of the house are depicted maize, the kĕlâdi (caladium) with its edible tubers, three sugar-canes with the edible shoots at the roots, another plant of maize, tapioca with its edible roots, a variety of yam with its tubers, and a banana; in addition there are six immature trees, and the punctate background denotes grass. The upper part of the bamboo represents those animals which may destroy the gifts of the soil. These are a caterpillar, a rat, two iguanas (monitors or lace-lizards, which go after hens’ eggs); next each lizard is a tree with leaves where they like to hide; a row of dots on each side of the tree-trunks denote the upward and downward tracks of the animals at night. There is also a tortoise with its young one, and a pair of crescentic lines indicate the pool where the reptile lives.
Another carved bamboo helps women to catch fish, and also protects them from poisonous ones.
To the uninitiated many patterns would appear to be simple decorative devices, but Mr. Stevens has found that they have definite meanings; for example, rattan may be conventionally represented by a straight or a waved line, orby two waved or zigzagged lines which, when applied together, form a series of ovals or diamonds. A cross-hatched band may stand for a house, the marking indicating a wall or the floor. Zigzags, like those in Fig.122,B, indicate frogs’ legs, these stand for frogs themselves, and these again are symbolic of water.
From the foregoing it is evident that it is only by making careful inquiries from the natives themselves that the meaning of most of the devices of savages can be elucidated. What we are apt to consider as mere decoration may have a very definite magical or symbolic significance.
Mr. Goodyear states[144]that Lieutenant Frank Cushing informed him that the patterns which the Zuñis borrow from foreign ware are supposed to endow their own pottery with the virtues of the foreign material and manufacture, and that their use of borrowed patterns has this purpose.
The same author,[145]referring to the decorative art of Ancient Egypt, quotes as follows from Professor Maspero:—“The object of decoration was not merely to delight the eye. Applied to a piece of furniture, a coffin, a house, a temple, decoration possessed a certain magical property, of which the power or nature was determined by each word inscribed or spoken at the moment of consecration. Every object, therefore, was an amulet as well as an ornament.”
The tying of magic knots is a common expedient in sorcery, as the following extracts from a short paper by Dr. March[146]will prove. The malevolent tying of a knot brought mischief upon a man, to be averted only by counter-plotting and counter-knotting. Sickness was caused by the invasion of a demon, or by spells wrought by an enemy; and evil spirits had to be exorcised, and the knot of the spell-bound to be loosed.
The magical texts, found in a biliteral form, written in the Accadian and the Assyrian tongues, furnish examples of which the following arespecimens:—
May the god of herbsUnloose the knot that has been knitted.Take the skin of a suckling that is still ungrown,Let the wise woman bind it to the right hand and double it on the left.Knit the knot seven times,Bind the head of the sick man.So may the guardian priest cause the ban to departFrom him, and unloose the bond.
May the god of herbsUnloose the knot that has been knitted.Take the skin of a suckling that is still ungrown,Let the wise woman bind it to the right hand and double it on the left.Knit the knot seven times,Bind the head of the sick man.So may the guardian priest cause the ban to departFrom him, and unloose the bond.
May the god of herbsUnloose the knot that has been knitted.
Take the skin of a suckling that is still ungrown,Let the wise woman bind it to the right hand and double it on the left.
Knit the knot seven times,Bind the head of the sick man.
So may the guardian priest cause the ban to departFrom him, and unloose the bond.
Amongst the Fins and the Norsemen evil spells could be wrought by malevolently twisting into a magic knot the fibres of certain trees, sometimes the birch, but more often the willow; and to unloose the knot was the surest way of undoing the mischief.
In the Sigurd Saga, Sigurd boasts to Eystein, “On the way to Palestine I came to Apulia, but, brother, I did not see thee there. I went all the way to Jordan and swam across the river. On the bank there grows a bush of willows, and there I twisted a knot of willows which is waiting there for thee. For this knot I said thou shouldst untie, brother, or take the curse that is bound up in it.”
Tying knots as a means of witchcraft is still in force in the British Islands, as may be seen in the publications of the Folk-Lore Society.[147]These practices need not necessarily be with evil intent, as the lovers’ knot had for an object the firm binding of the lovers’ affection to each other.
It is probable that many of the knots carved on ancientmonuments in Northern Europe have reference to this magical practice, and it is conceivable from what is known to occur elsewhere that a representation of a knot might possess all the virtue of a real knot.
But knots in Scandinavian art have also a symbolic significance and may be associated with Midgarth’s Worm and the serpents in the Norse pit of perdition. On portals from Veigusdal Church, in Sœtersdal (now in the Christiania Museum), are carved incidents from the favourite legend of Sigurd. On one of them, according to Dr. March,[148]may be seen the avaricious and ill-fated Fafni slain and utterly dismembered, passing into a maze of beautiful scrollwork. The same story is illustrated on two sides of the Halton Cross; here, however, the writhing knotted throes that elsewhere signify Fafni’s death take the form of a knot, Fafni himself not being represented.
In the following brief account of totemism I borrow largely from a small but peculiarly valuable book by Dr. Frazer.[149]“A totem is a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious respect, believing that there exists between him and every member of the class an intimate and altogether special relation.... As distinguished from a fetich, a totem is never an isolated individual, but always a class of objects, generally a species of animals or plants.
“Considered in relation to men, totems are of at least three kinds:—(1) The clan totem, common to a whole clan, and passing by inheritance from generation to generation;(2) the sex totem, common either to all the males or to all the females of a tribe, to the exclusion in either case of the other sex; (3) the individual totem, belonging to a single individual and not passing to his descendants.” The first is by far the most important, and we will confine ourselves to it alone.
“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, descendants 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 respect and protection between a man and his totem; in its social aspect 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 tend to part company;” the social system sometimes survives the religious, or the reverse may obtain.
The members of a totem clan call themselves by the name of their totem, and commonly believe themselves to be actually descended from it. For example, I found that the following animals were totems in Torres Straits: dog, dugong, cassowary, crocodile, snake, turtle, king-fish, shark, sting-ray, giant-clam, etc. “No cassowary-man would kill a cassowary; if one was seen doing so his clansmen would ‘fight him, they feel sorry. Cassowary he all same as relation, he belong same family.’ The members of the cassowary clan were supposed to be especially good runners. If there was going to be a fight a cassowary man would say to himself, ‘My leg is long and thin, I can run and not feel tired; my legs will go quickly, and the grass will not entangle them.’... If a dog-man killed a dog his clansmen would ‘fight’ him, but they would not do anything if an outsider killed one. A member of this clan was supposed to have great sympathy with dogs, and to understand thembetter than other men.... No member of any clan might kill or eat the totem of that clan. This prohibition did not apply to the totem of any clan other than that to which the person belonged.”[150]
The reader is referred to Mr. Frazer’s book for analogous beliefs and practices among various peoples. The relation between a man and his totem is one of mutual help and protection. If a man respects and cares for the totem, he expects that the totem will do the same by him.
“In order, apparently, to put himself more fully under the protection of the totem the clansman is in the habit of assimilating himself to the totem by dressing in the skin or other part of the totem animal, arranging his hair and mutilating his body so as to resemble the totem, and representing the totem on his body by cicatrices, tattooing, or paint” (Frazer, p. 26). As a matter of fact, there are comparatively few definite statements that markings on the person represent the totem of that person, but there can be little doubt that this is of wide occurrence and probably has been universal. Some of the best authenticated examples come from North America. Hints have come from Australia. I have in Torres Straits seen four old women who had their totems cut into the small of their backs; these were the dugong (2), snake, and sting-ray (?), and I was informed that the men used to scarify the shoulder or the calf of the leg with the totem device, or they carried about with them pieces of their totems or effigies of them.
The latest information on this subject is that collected by H. Vaughan Stevens.[151]
The Orang Sinnoi, Orang Bersisi, Orang Kenaboi, Orang Tumior declare that they are descended from one and the same folk, but that each tribe inhabited a separate islandbefore the general immigration into Malacca took place under Bertjanggei Besi. The Orang Tumior were an exception to this collective migration, as they had long before, independently, gone to Malacca.
The tradition of this tribe is very vague, but it is certain that they lived a long time separated from the other members of the group. It appears that they learnt at that time tattooing from another people, and confounded painting the face with tattooing.
For each of the three tribes, Orang Sinnoi, Orang Bersisi, and Orang Kenaboi, there was a distinct pattern, which was identical as regards the way it was laid on and the materials employed, but which varied in form. In each of the three tribes the chief and the ordinary man and woman have the same race-marks. Only among the Orang Sinnoi the women and ordinary men had a particular pattern for the breast. The sorcerer, or medicine-man, in each of the three tribes wore during an act of magic a painting suitable to the occasion; when not performing, he wore his usual painting.
The following is given as the origin of the pattern of the totem and its further development into the patterns of the different families:—In the olden time, when the people of the Orang Bĕlendas still lived under their chiefs and under-chiefs, paintings were made on the face for all assemblies, which were the old indigenous patterns for the peninsula. But as the group became broken up owing to the influx of the Malays, and intermarried with foreign and weakened folk, the patterns fell through and sub-divisions arose.
Among all the three tribes (Sinnoi, Kenaboi, and Bersisi) there was once a powerful clan, which bore the snake totem. Owing to the many changes they had to undergo, the members of this totem separated from one another and founded new families in different parts of the peninsula. The totem varied according to the practice of the folk, each newly-developed clan modified the ground pattern, one tooka python, one a cobra, another a hamadryas, etc.; they all retained the snake and varied their pattern according to the species. Similarly arose the sub-divisions of the fish (sting-fish) and leaf clans.
These totem figures of the separated families then became used only to mark out objects appertaining to them; they were scratched on the blow-pipes and used as a face-painting when the whole family assembled together on festivals or on important debates. As the great assemblies of all the groups fell into disuse, the old stem-marks gradually became worthless, so that, to-day, but few know the appearance of the old stem-marks.
As regards the materials used, all the Orang Bĕlendas agree in saying that a red earth was employed, which is not to be found on the peninsula. The so-called “anatto” (Bixa orellana) is used as a substitute for this earth, but it is not worth much, as it fades away in about an hour. The black colour is made with charcoal, the white with lime. The red colour is always laid on with the finger, consequently the stripe is narrower with the women than with the men.
These observations of Mr. Stevens, together with hints, rather than definite statements, which have been made from various parts of the world, suggest the conclusion that the painting, tattooing, or scarifying of designs on the body is mainly due to totemism.
A good deal of body-painting has other significances, as when it is done for religious ceremonies or for inspiring terror among the enemy when on the war-path; but it would probably be fair to assume that the origin of what may be termed domestic tattooing or scarification belongs to totemism. Here, again, is a fascinating and unworked field for research.
There is a very practical reason for the custom of marking the body with the totem. The religious aspect of totemism has been briefly described, this is the relation between aman and his totem; but there is also the relation of the men of a totem to each other and to men of other totems, or the social aspect of totemism, which deserves a passing notice.
“All the members of a totem clan regard each other as kinsmen or brothers and sisters, and are bound to help and protect each other. The totem bond is stronger than the bond of blood or family in the modern sense.... To kill a fellow-clansmen is a heinous offence. In Mangaia [Hervey Islands] ‘such a blow was regarded as falling upon the god [totem] himself; the literal sense of “ta atua” [to kill a member of the same totem clan] being god-striking or god-killing.’”[152]
Persons of the same totem may not marry or have sexual intercourse with each other. Amongst some peoples this rule is rigidly adhered to; the penalty for infringing this rule may be the vengeance of supernatural powers, but most frequently the clan steps in and punishes the offenders. Amongst the more primitive totemistic peoples the death penalty is usually enforced, but in any case the punishment is always severe. When other social conditions modify totemism these sexual restrictions are weakened and the punishment for offences is diminished.
There are some Australian tribes in which the members of any clan are free to marry members of any clan but their own; but more frequently an Australian tribe is divided into groups of clans, and a person can marry only into certain of these groups; an exogamous clan-group is known as a phratry. Thus a man is a possible husband to all the women of one or more phratries of his tribe, but he is brother to all the women of the remaining phratries.
“A remarkable feature of the Australian social organisation is that divisions of one tribe have their recognised equivalent in other tribes, whose languages, including thenames for the tribal divisions, are quite different. A native who travelled far and wide through Australia stated that ‘he was furnished with temporary wives by the various tribes with whom he sojourned in his travels; that his right to these women was recognised as a matter of course; and that he could always ascertain whether they belonged to the division into which he could legally marry, though the places were one thousand miles apart, and the languages quite different.’”[153]
I am not aware that any one has attempted to study the totem and divisional body-marks of the Australian tribes. This can only be done through careful and laborious investigations conducted among the natives; it cannot be accomplished in the study or in museums. If Australian anthropologists do not bestir themselves without delay this information will be irrevocably lost. Every year passed makes it more difficult to do, and soon it will be too late.
The origin of tattooing or scarifying of the person receives a fresh significance from these Australian customs. The marks appear to be, not so much tribal distinctions for political purposes, but clan badges of social significance with the object of preventing persons from falling into the sin of unwitting clan incest; they are, in fact, religious symbols which make for social purity.
It is obvious that the knowledge of these symbols has to be learnt by the young people, and hence this forms an important part of the information of lads imparted during the initiation ceremonies. The main religious object of these initiation ceremonies is the assimilation of the youth with his totem, and the consequent formal adoption into the clan of that totem. Thence follows the social aspect of that adoption, and the newly-made man is instructed in his social duties; he is taught the code of sexual permissions andprohibitions, and the knowledge of personal marks and gestures by means of which he can communicate his totem to, or to ascertain the totems of, strangers whose language he does not understand.
It is a common, possibly a universal custom, for totemistic peoples to decorate their belongings with their totems. This is well known to occur in North America. The Thlinkets paint or carve their totem on shields, helmets, canoes, blankets, household furniture, and houses. In single combats between chosen champions of different Thlinket clans, each wears a helmet representing his totem. In front of the houses of the chiefs and leading men of the Haidas are erected posts carved with the totems of the inmates. As the houses sometimes contain several families of different totems, the post often exhibits a number of totems, carved one above the other. Or these carvings one above the other represent the paternal totems in the female line, which, descent being in the female line, necessarily change from generation to generation. The totem is painted or carved on the clansman’s tomb or grave-post, the figure being sometimes reversed to denote death. It is always the Indian’s totem name, not his personal name, which is thus recorded. Other examples will be found in Mr. Frazer’s valuable little book.
I have already (p.17) referred to the delineation of totem animals on drums, pipes, and other objects from Torres Straits and the adjoining coast of New Guinea. Two representations of a totem are usually placed symmetrically on the object; I rather suspect that this is the rule. The cassowary is the most frequent animal on the drums, and I have reason to believe that only a certain clan, or clans, can beat the drums, in which case it is evident that the cassowary men are the chief if not the sole musicians.
When the totem representations are realistic in character there is no difficulty in recognising them; but this is by no means the usual case. Abundant evidence has been givenin this book of the degeneration of animal forms into simple decorative devices.
Many savages, however, lay no stress upon realism. A certain simple or complex mark represents a given object, it may not in the very least resemble that object any more than the written or printed name of an animal bears any relation to that animal. The mark is a sign for that object, and if it can be recognised, it answers its purpose. In many cases it can be shown that the mark is in reality a degraded picture of the object, in a vast number of examples we have no evidence.
On looking through collections of Australian weapons in museums, or in glancing over the illustrations to works on Australia, one is struck by the fact that a large number of objects are decorated with simple devices, and further that there is a very great deal of uniformity in the designs. Considering the size of that continent and the numerous tribes of its sparse native population, the paucity of artistic motives is very remarkable. The conclusion is pretty obvious, these designs must be representations of totems. At present we have no proof of this, nor are there sufficient data for the collation and assignation of the designs.
Dr. E. Grosse[154]is the sole anthropologist who has studied Australian art, but he has not been able to do more than enunciate general principles, owing to the absence of authoritative information from the natives. It is to be hoped that residents in Australia will learn all they can from the natives about their art before the knowledge is lost.
A slight acquaintance with decorated objects from Australia will reveal the very common occurrence of angular designs—zigzags, chevrons, diamonds, and so forth. As Dr. Grosse truly says:[154]“One is accustomed to describe these primitive ornaments as geometrical; and then it is not difficult to confound the name with the thing, so one quotes the geometric pattern occasionally as evidence forthe natural predilection of the simplest people for the simplest æsthetic motive, but no proof is advanced for this peculiar predilection, because in the bulk of the philosophy of art thea priorimethod remains unshaken. All primitive ornaments are not what they seem to be. We shall see that they have at bottom nothing whatever in common with geometric figures.... It is certainly not always easy to recognise the original form of a primitive ornament. When one considers the zigzag or the diamond pattern of an Australian shield, it appears that our assertion is without doubt that this is destitute of animal forms, and it will appear doubly certain when we acknowledge that in most cases we cannot directly know it. It was certainly a wonder to us when we knew it. The ornament of the Australians has been by no means systematically investigated. Even in the comprehensive work of Brough Smyth it is dismissed in some very general and very superficial remarks. In fact, no one has so much as taken the pains to ask the natives the meaning of the different patterns.”
Dr. Grosse then goes on to point out that “most of the ornament of the lower folk, as far as it has been investigated and as the Australian should be studied, is known to be imitations of animal or human forms. Nowhere has ornament so markedly a geometrical character as among the Brazilian tribes. Their rectilinear patterns suggest to a European, who contemplates them in a museum, anything else rather than natural forms. But Ehrenreich, who has studied them on the spot, has irrefutably demonstrated that they represent neither more nor less than animals or parts of animals.” In the section which deals with zoomorphs I describe some of these remarkable patterns, and to avoid repetition I would refer the reader to that description.
We must now review all the evidence which is before us, and slender though it is, there is sufficient to justify Dr. Grosse in arriving at his general conclusions.
P. Chauncy, in Appendix A. to Brough Smyth’s work(ii. p. 251), writes: “Some of the ancients took much delight in ornamenting their shields with all sorts of figures—birds, beasts, and the inanimate works of Nature. In like manner, the natives of Western Australia—at least some tribes north from Perth—adorn their narrow shields.” Brough Smyth (i. p. 294) says: “In ornamenting their rugs they copied from nature. One man told Mr. Bulmer[155]that he got his ideas from the observation of natural objects. He had copied the markings on a piece of wood made by the grub known asKrang; and from the scales of snakes and the markings of lizards he derived new forms. The natives never, in adorning their rugs or weapons, as far as Mr. Bulmer knows, imitate the forms of plants or trees.” On p. 284 he says: “On a few of the weapons appear rude figures of men and four-footed animals. One figure of a man shown by lines on a club is in the dress and attitude of a native dancing in a corroborree. The carvings are confined to their weapons of wood. Not one of the bone implements in my possession has a single line engraven on it. There are peculiarities in the arrangement of the lines on the ornamented shields of the West Australian natives which suggest that some meaning—understood only by the warriors themselves—is conveyed by such representations. The natives of Victoria often used forms the meaning of which is discoverable now.... In like manner, the natives of the Upper Darling represented on their shields figures in imitation of the totems of their tribes. One in my possession has engraven on it the figure of an iguana. Collins[156]states that in ornamenting their weapons and instruments, each tribe used some peculiar form by which it was known to what part of the country they belonged.” In the Introduction (p. liv.) we read, “There are, amongst some tribes, conventionalised forms, evidently; and it is of the utmostimportance to ascertain to what extent these are used, and by what tribes they are understood.” These remarks are as applicable to the designs on weapons and other objects as to the message-sticks to which our author was then more particularly referring. After contrasting the drawings of the native human figure by the Australians with the rude drawings of men made by European children, he continues (i. p. 285): “In like manner the natives have conventional forms for trees, lakes, and streams; and in transmitting information to friends in remote tribes they use the conventional forms, but in many cases modified, and in some cases so simplified as to be in reality rather symbols than diagrams or pictures.” “They often record events deemed worthy of note on their throwing-sticks” (ii. p. 259).
Brough Smyth describes the various kinds of angular patterns delineated by the natives of Australia, and concerning the figures cut on certain boomerangs and other missiles from Queensland, he says (i. p. 285), “All these forms have a meaning intelligible to the blacks of that part of the continent.”
“The information which Bulmer has preserved,” writes Dr. Grosse, “solves the problem of Australian ornament. It does not tell us how we can interpret it, but it does tell us why we can know next to nothing about it. If the whole form of an animal is represented as an ornamental motive, it is possible to recognise it even in a diagrammatic distorted representation, for this at least, as a rule, approaches the original form; but in most Australian patterns only portions of animals occur, and the natives most frequently delineate their signs for skins; in this case it is next to impossible for a European to elucidate their signification, especially as the implicated natural forms are almost always conventionally rendered. Our explanation is, as we previously stated, not strictly proved; but the old doctrine, which takes primitive ornament for freely constructed geometrical figures, is just as little so.”
Dr. Grosse maintains that his interpretation is in harmony with what is known of the nature of primitive folk, and reminds us that Ehrenreich has shown us that appearances may be deceptive. He then goes on to suggest that the decoration on a certain shield that he figures is an imitation of a snake’s skin, that on another shield the representation of a bird, and the diamonds and zigzags scored on other shields as conventional representations of feathers, hairs, or scales. Those interpretations may or may not be correct, and the reader should be on his guard not to take suppositions for facts. Dr. Grosse may have more evidence than he has been able to present to his readers; but, while adopting his main thesis, I do not think that, without such evidence, we can identify the originals of the designs.
“Besides such skin-patterns,” continues Dr. Grosse, “Australian ornament makes use of representations of entire men and animals. On clubs and throwing-sticks one frequently finds the engraved outlines of kangaroos, lizards, snakes, and fish, and especially frequently the figure of a corroborree-dancer in a characteristic attitude. The delineation of these figures is mainly crude and conventional; but in spite of this their meaning is nearly always quite intelligible.”
“The Australian warrior stands in the same relation to hiskobong[totem] animal as the European knight did towards his heraldic animal ... and as the European warrior paints a bear or an eagle on his shield, so the Australian ornaments his with a representation of a kangaroo or a snake’s skin. The knowledge that the ornaments on Australian weapons are to a large extent heraldic designs, clears up at the same time two points which we have already mentioned, but have not yet elucidated—the frequent employment of animal skin-patterns, and their peculiar conventional rendering. The native whosekobong[totem] is perhaps a very large animal—and in this position most find themselves—manifestly can decorate his shieldwith no more suitable clan-mark and no more efficacious fetich than the skin of his heraldic animal. The actual skin may or may not have been employed, and in this latter case an engraved or painted representation was substituted. These representations are scarcely ever true to nature, most of them remind one in their angular and stiff regularity more of a plait-work than of a pelt or plumage.” Dr. Grosse goes on to point out that this conventional treatment is intentional on the part of the Australian native, and is not due to lack of skill either in the delineation of animals or in wood-carving. “The fact is these skin-markings are heraldic designs; but heraldic drawing aims at truth to nature as little in Australia as in Europe. It therefore by no means happens that the actual pattern of a kangaroo or of a snake should be drawn true to nature, but it comes about that a kangaroo or snake-pattern represents a definite clan.”
Although the greater part of Australian decorative art is probably totemistic in origin, there is a residue, the elucidation of which must be sought in other directions, but these do not at present concern us.
Mr. Andrew Lang has turned his attention to many anthropological subjects, and that of “the art of savages”[157]has not been passed over by him; but he has perhaps plunged into it without due consideration. Doubtless he himself would now modify the statement that “the absence of the rude imitative art of heraldry among a race which possesses all the social conditions that produce this art is a fact worth noticing, and itself proves that the native art of one of the most backward races we know is not essentially imitative.” Instead of “the patterns on Australian shields and clubs, the scars which they raise on their own flesh,” being “very rarely imitations of any objects in nature,” we may now regard most of them as probably indicating such objects.
It is, perhaps, scarcely going too far to assert that a veryconsiderable part of the decorative and glyptic art of many primitive peoples has been inspired by totemism; but it must be remembered that we have no positive evidence of totemism among a very considerable number of peoples. As animals are the most frequent totems, so zoomorphs and their derivatives are as constantly in evidence in the art of these people.
The artistic representations become modified as totemism itself becomes modified. I can only very briefly allude to some of the probable stages in the later evolution of totemism. The attribution of human qualities to the totem is the essence of totemism, and the tribal totem tends to pass into an anthropomorphic god. Mr. Frazer points out that there are often numerous sub-totems associated with each of the main totems, and suggests that there is a sort of life-history of totems, “as sub-totems they are growing; as clan totems they are grown; as sub-phratric and phratric totems they are in successive stages of decay.” He also puts forward the view that these subordinate totems are regarded as incarnations of the gods or god in process of evolution, and as the latter rise more and more into human form, so the former “sink from the dignity of incarnations into the humbler character of favourites and clients; until, at a later age, the links which bound them to the god having wholly faded from memory, a generation of mythologists arises who seek to patch up the broken chain by the cheap method of symbolism. But symbolism is only the decorous though transparent veil which a refined age loves to throw over its own ignorance of the past.”
So far I have mainly referred to the employment of the representation of totem animals as badges, but they are also made use of to indicate descent. Ancestor worship is an important element in the religion of many peoples, and the art which illustrates this naturally varies according to the plane of culture at which a given people have arrived. When a people are in a totemistic plane of culture theirancestors will usually be represented as animals, the same holds good for those that have but recently emerged from this phase. This we know is the explanation of some of the well-known totem-posts and animal carvings of the natives of British Columbia, and it probably holds good for many of the intricate grotesque carvings from New Ireland.
When the totem has been evolved into an anthropomorphic god, human (i.e.god) forms are represented in the genealogy, as occurs on the decorated adzes of the Hervey Islands (pp.270-274).
It is incorrect to term all worship of or attention paid to animals as “Totemism.” In a great number of cases this may have been the origin of a cult, but it is a mistake to apply the lower term when the cult is sublimated into a higher form of religion. That a considerable part of the religion of ancient Greece had its origin in Totemism is generally admitted; but the animal attributes of most of their deities would not characterise the religion of the most cultured Greeks as totemistic.[158]The ox, the bear, the mouse, wild beasts and birds, and similar associates of the Olympian hierarchy, whatever they were to the ancients, are to us milestones which marked the road traversed by Hellenic religion; the Egyptian had been petrified at an earlier phase.
In the sacred bird of Western Oceania, we can probably trace the commencement of totemistic sublimation.
The cult of the frigate-bird is characteristic of Melanesia, and apparently also extends to the Pelew Islands. Dr. Codrington (The Melanesians, 1891, p. 145) informs us that at Florida in the Solomon Group they pray as follows to “Daula, atindalogenerally known and connected withthe frigate-bird [atindalois the ghost or spirit of a man endowed withmana, that is superhuman power or influence]: ‘Do thou draw the canoe, that it may reach the land; speed my canoe, grandfather, that I may quickly reach the shore whither I am bound,’ etc. Daula is invoked to aid in fishing ... after a good catch he is praised.” On p. 180 we read, “The sacred character of the frigate-bird is certain; the figure of it, however conventional, is the most common ornament employed in the Solomon Islands, and is even cut upon the hands of the Bugotu people; the oath by its name ofdaulais solemn and binding in Florida; where Daula is atindalo, many and powerful to aid at sea are the ghosts which abide in these birds.” Who Daula was, when he was a living man, has “passed far away from any historical remembrance” (p. 126).
In his interesting little book onThe Evolution of Decorative Art, Mr. H. Balfour gives illustrations of conventional representations of the frigate-bird in the Solomon Islands (Figs. 11, 26). In Figs. 26, 27, 25, he shows a gradation between a “bird-like canoe charm,” through a “human-headed bird canoe-charm,” to a “canoe fetich,” the latter having a very prognathous human head.[159]The mergence of a frigate-bird’s into a human head may be due, as Mr. Balfour suggests, to one design acting upon the other, or it may be the artistic expression of the cult described by Dr. Codrington.
The canoes of the Solomon Islands often have as a figure-head the carved representation of the upper part of a man who holds in his hands another human head.[160]The human figure is possibly an image of thetindaloin Daula. (Dr. Codrington states that atindalois always the spirit of a real deceased man.[160]) The carvings of birds on the bow of a canoe are practically invocations to the sacred and powerful frigate-bird.
The face or head carried in the hands of the human figure-heads (“canoe god,” “charm,” or “fetich”) “represents that taken when the canoe was first used.” A canoe of importance “required a life for its inauguration.” Dr. Codrington (loc. cit., p. 296) alludes to other adjuncts to the bow of canoes which give protection and success.
The opening remarks in the section dealing with sympathetic magic were largely borrowed from Dr. Frazer, and I again have recourse to that author for the following sketch of the incipient religion of primitive folk.
The savage fails to recognise those limitations to his power over nature which seem so obvious to us. In a society where every man is supposed to be endowed more or less with powers which we should call supernatural, it is plain that the distinction between gods and men is somewhat blurred, or rather has scarcely emerged.
The conception of gods as supernatural beings entirely distinct from and superior to man, and wielding powers to which he possesses nothing comparable in degree and hardly even in kind, has been slowly evolved in the course of history.
At first the world is regarded as a great democracy; but with the growth of his knowledge man realises more clearly the vastness of nature and his own feebleness; this, however, enhances his conception of the power of those supernatural beings with which his imagination peoples the universe. If he feels himself to be so frail and slight, how vast and powerful must he deem the beings who control the gigantic machinery of nature!
Thus, as his old sense of equality with gods slowly vanishes, he resigns at the same time the hope of directing the course of nature by his own unaided resources, that is, by magic, and looks more and more to the gods as the sole repositories of those supernatural powers which he once claimed to share with them.
With the first advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and sacrifice assume the leading place in religious ritual; and magic, which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal, is gradually relegated to the background, and sinks to the level of a black art. It is now regarded as an encroachment, at once vain and impious, on the domain of the gods, and as such encounters the steady opposition of the priests, whose reputation and influence gain or lose with those of their gods. Hence, when at a late period the distinction between religion and superstition has emerged, we find that sacrifice and prayer are the resource of the pious and enlightened portion of the community, while magic is the refuge of the superstitious and ignorant.
Throughout the whole of this slow evolution ornamental art has attempted to visualise the religious conceptions of the period. It would probably be more correct to regard the pictorial representations of religion as usually illustratinga past rather than a present aspect of belief. For a drawing, like a creed, fixes a type, and the form has a tendency to be repeated unconscious of the fact that the spirit may have burst its bonds and soared into a higher region.
Not only does the motive of religious art vary according to the stage of evolution of the religion which it illustrates, but the art itself is subject to modification as it enters into new phases of what I have termed its life-history.
Totemism is one phase of religion, but owing to its great importance in the economy of primitive peoples I have treated it in an independent section. As totemism gradually shades off into god-worship so its artistic symbolism is merged into that of divinities, but it often persists to an unexpected extent.