Folklore; Manners and customs; Mythology; Religion
The second question now arises: Can we infer from survivals of totemism
among Aryans that these Aryans had once been organised on the full
totemistic principle, probably with polyandry, and certainly with female
descent? Where totemism now exists in full force, there we find exogamy
and derivation of the family name through women, the latter custom
indicating uncertainty of male parentage in the past. Are we to believe
that the same institutions have existed wherever we find survivals of
totemism? If this be granted, and if the supposed survivals of totemism
among Aryans be accepted as genuine, then the Aryans have distinctly come
through a period of kinship reckoned through women, with all that such an
institution implies. For indications that the Aryans of Greece and India
have passed through the stage of totemism, the reader may be referred to
Mr. M'Lennan's 'Worship of Plants and Animals' ('Fortnightly Review,'
1869, 1870). The evidence there adduced is not all of the same value,
and the papers are only a hasty rough sketch based on the first
testimonies that came to hand. Probably the most important 'survival' of
totemism in Greek legend is the body of stories about the amours of Zeus
in animal form. Various noble houses traced their origin to Zeus or
Apollo, who, as a bull, tortoise, serpent, swan, or ant, had seduced the
mother of the race. The mother of the Arcadians became a she-bear, like
the mother of the bear stock of the Iroquois. As we know plenty of races
all over the world who trace their descent from serpents, tortoises,
swans, and so forth, it is a fair hypothesis that the ancestors of the
Greeks once believed in the same fables. In later times the swan,
serpent, ant, or tortoise was explained as an avatar of Zeus. The
process by which an anthropomorphic god or hero succeeds to the exploits
of animals, of theriomorphic gods and heroes, is the most common in
mythology, and is illustrated by actual practice in modern India. When
the Brahmins convert a pig-worshipping tribe of aboriginals, they tell
their proselytes that the pig was an avatar of Vishnu. The same process
is found active where the Japanese have influenced the savage Ainos, and
persuaded them that their bear- or dog-father was a manifestation of a
deity. We know from Plutarch ('Theseus') that, in addition to families
claiming descent from divine animals, one Athenian [Greek], the Ioxidae,
revered an ancestral plant, the asparagus. A vaguer indication of
totemism may perhaps be detected in the ancient theriomorphic statues of
Greek gods, as the Ram-Zeus and the Horse-headed Demeter, and in the
various animals and plants which were sacred to each god and represented
as his companions.
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