Sternberg, "Die Religion der Giljaken", "Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft", VIII. (1905), page 248.) The Borororos, an Indian tribe of Brazil, will have it that they are parrots of a gorgeous red plumage which live in their native forests. Accordingly they treat the birds as their fellow-tribesmen, keeping them in captivity, refusing to eat their flesh, and mourning for them when they die. (K. von den Steinen, "Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens" (Berlin, 1894), pages 352 sq., 512.)) This sense of the close relationship of man to the lower creation is the essence of totemism, that curious system of superstition which unites by a mystic bond a group of human kinsfolk to a species of animals or plants. Where that system exists in full force, the members of a totem clan identify themselves with their totem animals in a way and to an extent which we find it hard even to imagine. For example, men of the Cassowary clan in Mabuiag think that cassowaries are men or nearly so. "Cassowary, he all same as relation, he belong same family," is the account they give of their relationship with the long-legged bird. Conversely they hold that they themselves are cassowaries for all practical purposes. They pride themselves on having long thin legs like a cassowary. This reflection affords them peculiar satisfaction when they go out to fight, or to run away, as the case may be; for at such times a Cassowary man will 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." Members of the Cassowary clan are reputed to be pugnacious, because the cassowary is a bird of very uncertain temper and can kick with extreme violence. (A.C. Haddon, "The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits", "Journal of the Anthropological Institute", XIX. (1890), page 393; "Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits", V. (Cambridge, 1904), pages 166, 184.) So among the Ojibways men of the Bear clan are reputed to be surly and pugnacious like bears, and men of the Crane clan to have clear ringing voices like cranes. (W.W. Warren, "History of the Ojibways", "Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society", V. (Saint Paul, Minn. 1885), pages 47, 49.) Hence the savage will often speak of his totem animal as his father or his brother, and will neither kill it himself nor allow others to do so, if he can help it. For example, if somebody were to kill a bird in the presence of a native Australian who had the bird for his totem, the black might say, "What for you kill that fellow? that my father!" or "That brother belonging to me you have killed; why did you do it?" (E. Palmer, "Notes on some Australian Tribes", "Journal of the Anthropological Institute", XIII. (1884), page 300.) Bechuanas of the Porcupine clan are greatly afflicted if anybody hurts or kills a porcupine in their presence. They say, "They have