Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IVToy, Crawford Howell
HistoryHistory
Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV
Toy, Crawford Howell
Mythology; Religion -- History; Religions -- History; Rites and ceremonies
+458+. There is little evidence for totemic food restrictions in North
America. The custom of apologizing to an animal on killing it, frequent
elsewhere, is reported as existing among the Algonkin Ottawas and
Menomini; but this is not necessarily totemic. The more advanced tribes
of the East and South (Algonkin, Iroquois, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasas,
Cherokees, Natchez), the peoples of the Pacific Coast, and the
agricultural tribes of the middle of the continent (Pueblos, Mandans,
and others) appear to be free from restrictions as to eating. The
Navahos are said to refrain from the flesh of fish, turkeys, swine, and
bears, but the grounds of the interdiction are not clear.[812] The
distinctest evidence of totemistic clan food-taboos are found among the
Siouan Caddos (of the southern Mississippi Valley) and the Omahas (of
the Middle West). Both these groups are in part agricultural, and it
does not appear how they have come to differ from their neighbors in
this regard. Food restrictions are reported for the Northwest
region.[813]
+459+. There is no clear report of totemic food restrictions in Central
America or in South America;[814] but these regions have as yet not been
thoroughly examined for clan usages.
+460+. (e) _Magical ceremonies for increasing the supply of food._ Such
ceremonies exist, or have existed, in many regions and among peoples of
various grades of culture, civilized as well as savage, but the cases in
which they are, or were, conducted by totemistic clans are comparatively
few. This sort of economic function of the totem clan is most definite
and important in Central and parts of Southeast Australia, where every
clan is charged with the duty of increasing the supply of its totem for
the benefit of its connected clans; and magical rites are performed in
the fertile coast region no less than in the arid region about Lake
Eyre--that is, in these cases the employment of magic seems not to be
conditioned on the natural resources of the land. Similar totemic clan
functions appear in the islands of Torres Straits, the Turtle and Dugong
clans performing ceremonies to increase the supply of turtles and to
attract dugongs. Magical control of totems for the benefit of the whole
community is reported to be found in the Siouan Omaha clans (in the
center of the North American continent). The tribes just mentioned are
those in which the social organization is definitely totemistic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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