The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 2 of 2)Frazer, James George
ReligionComparative
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 2 of 2)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
But when a savage names himself after an animal, calls it his brother, and
refuses to kill it, the animal is said to be his totem. Accordingly the
bat and the owl, the Emu Wren and the Superb Warbler, may properly be
described as totems of the sexes. But the assignation of a totem to a sex
is comparatively rare, and has hitherto been discovered nowhere but in
Australia. Far more commonly the totem is appropriated not to a sex, but
to a tribe or clan, and is hereditary either in the male or female line.
The relation of an individual to the tribal totem does not differ in kind
from his relation to the sex totem; he will not kill it, he speaks of it
as his brother, and he calls himself by its name.(891) Now if the
relations are similar, the explanation which holds good of the one ought
equally to hold good of the other. Therefore the reason why a tribe revere
a particular species of animals or plants (for the tribal totem may be a
plant) and call themselves after it, must be a belief that the life of
each individual of the tribe is bound up with some one animal or plant of
the species, and that his or her death would be the consequence of killing
that particular animal, or destroying that particular plant. This
explanation of totemism squares very well with Sir George Grey’s
definition of a totem or _kobong_ in Western Australia. He says, “A
certain mysterious connection exists between a family and its _kobong_, so
that a member of the family will never kill an animal of the species to
which his _kobong_ belongs, should he find it asleep; indeed he always
kills it reluctantly, and never without affording it a chance to escape.
This arises from the family belief that some one individual of the species
is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime, and to be
carefully avoided. Similarly, a native who has a vegetable for his
_kobong_ may not gather it under certain circumstances, and at a
particular period of the year.”(892) Here it will be observed that though
each man spares all the animals or plants of the species, they are not all
equally precious to him; far from it, out of the whole species there is
only one which is specially dear to him; but as he does not know which the
dear one is, he is obliged to spare them all from fear of injuring the
one. Again, this explanation of the tribal totem harmonises with the
supposed effect of killing one of the totem species. “One day one of the
blacks killed a crow. Three or four days afterwards a Boortwa (crow)
[_i.e._ a man of the Crow clan or tribe] named Larry died. He had been
ailing for some days, but the killing of his wingong [totem] hastened his
death.”(893) Here the killing of the crow caused the death of a man of the
Crow clan, exactly as, in the case of the sex totems, the killing of a bat
causes the death of a Bat man, or the killing of an owl causes the death
of an Owl woman. Similarly, the killing of his _nagual_ causes the death
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