The question of the relations of religion and totemism is scarcely touched on in this work. A certain amount of regard is given to their totem animals and plants by some of the Australian tribes, to the extent of not killing, plucking, or eating them, except under stress of need, but even this is not universal. There also exists, in some cases, a sense of kinship with them. They are not worshipped. That magic is worked for their preservation and propagation, as by the Arunta, proves nothing in the nature of a religious attitude towards them. In my opinion this religious regard for the totem does not appear till ancestor worship, which does not occur in Australia, has made considerable advance and a myth arises that an ancestral spirit or family god is incarnate in the animal which originally was only a totem. If so, totemism is not an element in the origins of religion, but a field later invaded by religion. On the other hand, Dr. Achelis, of Bremen, writes that to savage man ‘animals are his equals. To the ancient worship of animals is added, under the influence of sympathetic emotion, the worship of ancestors and totemism, which sees in a beast worshipped as a god the ancestor of the whole tribe.’[6] Clearly this sentence is replete with errors and confusions. The whole tribe, in Australia, does not regard any animal as its ancestor. No beast is worshipped as a god. No ancestors are worshipped. If the animals are ‘his equals,’ why did man worship them, and that apparently before the worship of ancestors and totemism arose? In an essay like that of Dr. Achelis on _Ethnology and Religion_ the facts ought to be correctly ascertained. I have been obliged to place in Appendix A certain facts about group names derived from animals which came late to hand, among them Mr. Robertson’s interesting letter on many such names in the Orkneys, and some remarks on village names derived from animals among the ancient Hebrews. [Footnote 1: _Man, Past and Present_, Cambridge, 1899, pp. 396, 397.] [Footnote 2: _Royal Commentaries_, i. 47.] [Footnote 3: _The Import of the Totem_, Amer. Ass., Detroit, 1897.] [Footnote 4: M. Chaffanjon, _Tour du Monde_, 1888, lvi. 348.] [Footnote 5: _Ethnology_, pp. 9, 11.] [Footnote 6: _The International Quarterly_, Dec.-March, 1902-1903, p. 321.] CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY The family. Theory of Mr. Atkinson--Primitiveness in man--Recent history of the speculation as to the early human family--What is exogamy? Difficulties of terminology--Totemism and exogamy--Theories of exogamy. Mr. McLellan’s theory--Mr. Crawley’s theory--Dr. Westermarck’s theory--Mr. Morgan’s theory--Return to the author’s theory CHAPTER II THE CLASS SYSTEM The class system in Australia--The varieties of marriage divisions in Australia--Mr. Fison on the great bisection--‘Primary classes?’--The ‘primary divisions’ are themselves totemic and exogamous--The totem difficulty CHAPTER III