We cannot prove that it was not so, that a primitive group of rudimentary human beings did not make a covenant with Bear, or Wolf, as Israel did with Jehovah, and as an individual savage does with his _nyarong_, or _nagual_, or manitu. This covenant, if made and kept by each group, would be the Origin of Totemism. But, with female descent, the covenant could not be kept. I am not certain that this theory, involving joint and deliberate selection and retention of a totem, by a primeval human group, has ever been maintained, unless it be by Mr. Jevons. ‘The primary object of a totem alliance between a human kin and an animal kind is to obtain a supernatural ally against supernatural foes.’[5] The term ‘supernatural’ seems here out of place--both the animal kind and the human kin being natural; and one has a difficulty in conceiving that very early groups of kin would make, and would adhere to, such alliances. Indeed, how could they adhere to their totems, when these descended through women of alien totem groups? But there seems to be nothing otherwise impossible or self-contradictory in this theory; nor can it be disproved, for lack of evidence. Only such theories as are self-contradictory, or inconsistent with the known and admitted facts of the case, are capable of absolute disproof. It may, of course, be objected here that, though totems, in actual savage society, descend sometimes in the female line, still, descent in the male line may be the original rule; and that thus a group, like an individual, could seek, make a covenant with, and cleave to a grub, or frog, or lizard, as a supernatural ally. But, for reasons already indicated, in an earlier part of this work, I conceive that, originally, totems descended in the female line only. One reason for this opinion is that, as soon as descent of the totem comes by the male line, a distinct step in the upward movement towards civilisation and a settled life is made. It is not very probable that the backward step, from reckoning by male lineage to descent in the female line, has often been taken. On the other hand, tribes which now inherit the totem in the male line, exhibit in their institutions many survivals of female descent. An instance is that of the Mandans, as recorded by Mr. Dorsey.[6] Among the Melanesians, where female descent still exists, there is at work the most obvious tendency towards descent through males, as Dr. Codrington proves in an excellent work on that people. Dr. Durkheim, too, has pointed out the traces of uterine descent among the Arunta, who now reckon in the male line.[7] On the other hand, where we find descent in the male line, I am not aware that we discover signs of movement in the opposite direction. In this opinion that, as a general rule, descent was reckoned in the female, not the male line, originally, I have the support of Mr. E. B. Tylor.[8] For these reasons the hypothesis of the selection of and covenant with a ‘supernatural