Mr. Tylor observes, ‘Wilken sees in this transmigration of souls
the link which connects Totemism with ancestor-worship,’ and thinks
that Dr. Codrington’s remarks on Melanesian ways add weight to this
opinion. In Melanesia, as Dr. Codrington reports, an influential man,
before his death, will lay a ban, or tabu, on something, say a banana,
or a pig. He says that he ‘will be in’ a shark, a banana, a bird, a
butterfly, or what not. Dr. Codrington’s informant, Mr. Sleigh of Lifu,
says ‘that creature would be sacred to his family,’ they would call
it ‘papa,’ and ‘offer it a young cocoa-nut.’ ‘_But they did not adopt
thus the name of a tribe_.’ The children of papa, who chose to be a
butterfly (like Mr. Thomas Haynes Bailey) do not call themselves ‘The
Butterflies,’ nor does the butterfly name mark their exogamous limit.
Mr. Tylor concludes, ‘an ancestor, having lineal descendants among men
and sharks, or men and owls, is thus the founder of a totem family,
which mere increase may convert into a totem clan, already provided
with its animal name.’ This conclusion is tentative, and put forth with
Mr. Tylor’s usual caution. But, as a matter of fact, no totem kin is
actually founded thus, for example, in Melanesia. The institutions
of that region, as we are to show, really illustrate the way out of,
not the way into, Totemism. Moreover the theory, as expressed by
Mr. Tylor in the words cited, must be deemed unfortunate because it
takes for granted that ‘the Patriarchal theory’ of the origin of the
so-called ‘clan,’ or totem group, is correct. A male ancestor founds
a family, which swells, ‘by natural increase,’ into a ‘clan.’ The
ancestor is worshipped under the name of Butterfly, his descendants,
the clan founded by him, are named Butterflies. But all this can only
happen where male ancestors are remembered, and are worshipped, where
descent is reckoned in the male line, and where, as among ourselves, a
remembered male ancestor founds a House, as Tam o’ the Cowgate founded
the House of Haddington. In short Dr. Wilken has slipped back into
the Patriarchal theory. Now, among totemists like the Australians,
ancestors are not remembered, their names are tabued, they are not
worshipped, they do not found families, where descent is reckoned in
the female line.[30]
MISS ALICE FLETCHER’S THEORY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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