To a far greater extent than in Africa, totemic culture has almost entirely disappeared throughout the entire _Asiatic_ world. Only in the extreme north among the Tchuktchis, the Yakutes, and Ghilyaks, and in the far south among the Dravidian tribes of Hindustan who were pushed back by the influx of Hindoos, have remnants of totemic institutions survived. In addition to these, only scanty fragments of totemism proper may be found in Asia--the home of the great cultural peoples of the Old World. Surviving effects of totemic culture, however, are everywhere apparent, no less in the sacred animals of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Hindoos, Greeks, and the Germanic peoples, than in the significance attached by the Romans to the flight of birds and to the examination of entrails, and in the Israelitic law which forbids the eating of the flesh of certain animals. In the light of all these facts, the conclusion appears highly probable that at some time totemic culture everywhere paved the way for a more advanced civilization, and, thus, that it represents a transitional stage between the age of primitive man and the era of heroes and gods. 3. TOTEMIC TRIBAL ORGANIZATION.[1] As has already been stated, the beginning of the totemic age is not marked by any essential change in external culture. As regards dress, decoration, and the acquisition of food, the conditions that we meet, particularly among the natives of Central Australia, differ scarcely at all from those of the primitive races of the pretotemic age. It is only in the weapons, which are already clearly indicative of tribal warfare, that we find an unmistakable external indication of deeper-going differences in social culture. At the same time, however, the totemic age includes peoples whose general manner of life we are accustomed to call semi-cultural. The greatest contrast occurs between the natives of Australia and of some of the portions of Melanesia, on the one hand, and those of North America, particularly of the eastern part, on the other. While the former still live the primitive life of the gatherer and the hunter, the latter possess the rudiments of agriculture, as well as the associated cult festivals, the beginnings of a celestial mythology, and richer forms of legend and poetry. Nevertheless, as regards the most universal characteristic of totemic culture, namely, the _form of tribal organization_, the two groups of peoples differ but slightly, although conditions in Australia have on the whole remained more primitive. This is most clearly shown by the fact that, among the Australian natives, the totem animal possesses the significance of a cult object, whereas in America, and particularly among the Atlantic tribes, whose totemic practices have received the most careful study, the totem animal has obviously come to be a mere coat of arms. The difference might, perhaps, be briefly stated thus: In Australia, the totem names signify groups of cult members within a clan; in