[139] Just as to-day we still have the wolves in a cage at the steps of
the Capitol in Rome and the bears in the pit at Berne.
[140] Like the legend of the white woman in many noble families.
[141] _l.c._, p. 35.--See the discussion of sacrifice further on.
[142] See Chapter I.
[143] p. 116.
[144] The conclusion which Frazer draws about totemism in his second
work on the subject (_The Origin of Totemism; Fortnightly Review_, 1899)
agrees with this text: “Thus, totemism has commonly been treated as a
primitive system both of religion and of society. As a system of
religion it embraces the mystic union of the savage with his totem; as a
system of society it comprises the relations in which men and women of
the same totem stand to each other and to the members of other totemic
groups. And corresponding to these two sides of the system are two
rough-and-ready tests or canons of totemism: first, the rule that a man
may not kill or eat his totem animal or plant, and second, the rule that
he may not marry or cohabit with a woman of the same totem” (p. 101).
Frazer then adds something which takes us into the midst of the
discussion about totemism: “Whether the two sides--the religious and the
social--have always coexisted or are essentially independent, is a
question which has been variously answered.”
[145] In connexion with such a change of opinion Frazer made this
excellent statement: “That my conclusions on these difficult questions
are final, I am not so foolish as to pretend. I have changed my views
repeatedly, and I am resolved to change them again with every change of
the evidence, for like a chameleon the inquirer should shift his colours
with the shifting colours of the ground he treads.” Preface to Vol. I,
_Totemism and Exogamy_, 1910.
[146] “By the nature of the case, as the origin of totemism lies far
beyond our powers of historical examination or of experiment, we must
have recourse as regards this matter, to conjecture,” Andrew Lang,
_Secret of the Totem_, p. 27.--“Nowhere do we see absolutely primitive
man, and a totemic system in the making,” p. 29.
[147] At first probably only animals.
[148] _The Worship of Animals and Plants_ (_Fortnightly Review_,
1869-1870). _Primitive Marriage_, 1865; both works reprinted in _Studies
in Ancient History_, 1876; second edition, 1886.
[149] _The Secret of the Totem_, 1905, p. 34.
[150] _Ibid._
[151] _Ibid._
[152] According to Andrew Lang.
[153] Pikler and Somló, _The Origin of Totemism_, 1901. The authors
rightly call their attempt at explanation a “Contribution to the
materialistic theory of History.”
[154] _The Origin of Animal Worship_ (_Fortnightly Review_, 1870).
_Principles of Psychology_, Vol. I, §§ 169 to 176.
[155] _Kamilaroi and Kurmai_, p. 165, 1880 (Lang, _Secret of the Totem_,
etc.).
[156] See the chapter on Taboo, p. 96.
[157] _l.c._, Vol. I, p. 41.
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