+540+. Cults of the totem and of individual guardian spirits are to be distinguished from certain other forms of worship with which they have points of connection. The West African fetish is the abode of a tutelary spirit, and finally is absorbed by local gods; it arises, however, from belief in the sacredness and power of inanimate things, and is without the sense of identity with the spirit that characterizes the North American relation. The family sacred symbols that are worshiped in some places[898] are really family gods (whether or not they were originally totems), developed, probably, under Brahmanic influence. The worship of a tutelary spirit has sometimes coalesced with that of an ancestor, but this is doubtless due to the collocation of two distinct cults; at a certain stage an ancestor is naturally regarded as friend and protector. The general potency termed "mana" is not to be connected particularly with any one cult; it represents a conception that probably underlies all ancient forms of worship. +541+. It thus appears that several lines of social progress have proved unfavorable to totemism, and to these movements it has generally succumbed. Its home has been, and is, in isolated hunting communities; agriculture and social intercourse have been fatal to it as to all early forms of society based on a belief in kinship with nonhuman natural objects. +542+. It remains to mention the principal theories of the origin of totemism that are or have been held, and to ask what part it has played in the history of religion. +543+. _Theories of the origin of totemism._ These may conveniently be divided into such as refer the origin to individual action, and such as refer it to the action of clans. +544+. _Individualistic theories._ Among the earliest of theories were those that explained the totemic constitution as due to a confusion in the minds of savages between names and things. Individuals or families might be named after animals, plants, and other objects, and these, it was supposed, might come to be regarded as intimately associated with human persons, and might be looked on with affection or reverence and even worshiped.[899] Or, more definitely, it was held that, the origin of such names being forgotten, reverence for the ancestors led to reverence for the things after which they were named and identification with them--a man whose ancestor was called "the Tiger" would think of himself as descended from a tiger and as being of the tiger stock.[900] It is now generally recognized, however, that the origin of so widespread and influential a system of organization as totemism cannot be referred to a mere misunderstanding of nicknames; and whether such misunderstanding was general or natural in early times is open to doubt.