The former use of totems may probably be assumed also when animal names are applied, not to tribal divisions, but to the tribes themselves, as we have seen is the case with the Arabs. Thus, when the great Hindu Epic,[312] in describing the adventures of Arjuna, one of the Pandavan Princes, says that the Nagas or Serpents were defeated with the aid of Peacocks, we must understand that a people known as Peacocks, from their totemic device, defeated a people whose badge was a serpent. The Peacock was indeed the heraldic device of the Tambouk Kings of Orissa. Probably the existence of the _Singhs_ or Lions, the warrior caste of the tribes of North-Western India, may be accounted for in the same way. Dr. M’Lennan[313] refers to numerous facts to prove that many animals, among others the Serpent, the Horse, the Bull, the Lion, the Bear, the Dog, and the Goat gave names to ancient tribes, who used the animals after whom they were called as badges. He goes further than this, and supposes that all the ancient nations passed through a totem stage, in which they had animals and plants for gods. This question, however, we shall have occasion to refer to later on. The nature of totems having been shown, the object of totemism as a system has now to be explained. The Rev. George Taplin remarks that each Narrinyeri tribe is regarded as a family, every member of which is a blood relation, and the totem borne by the Australian tribe, or rather tribal division, is thus the symbol of a family group, in like manner as the American totem is the device of a gens. The first question asked of a stranger by the Dieyerie tribe of Cooper’s Creek, in Central Australia, is “Of what family (murdoo) are you?” Each murdoo is distinguished by a special name, being that of some object which, according to a tribal legend, may be animate or inanimate, such as a dog, mouse, emu, iguana, rain, &c.[314] It is evident that the Australian totemic device is equivalent to a family name, a name which belongs to all the members of a particular group, and which cannot be held by any person not belonging by birth or adoption to that group, so that it is aptly termed by the Rev. Lorimer Fison[315] a “badge of fraternity.” This badge answers to the “device of a gens,” as the token of the American tribes is defined, and its possession by any person is proof that he belongs to a particular gens or tribal division, and that he is entitled or subject to all the rights, privileges, and obligations of its members. Schoolcraft very properly terms the gens the totemic institution, and as the rights, privileges, and obligations of the gens are attached to the totem, a consideration of them will throw much light on the subject of this paper.