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قراءة كتاب Social Origins and Primal Law
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never hunt or eat this animal, and they also think all the surrounding tribes are in the same way each provided with their special animal fore-father. It is easy to see how such ideas tend to cluster round the clan[4] or family totem, at first a distinguishing badge, later a protecting or tutelar deity of Protean form. It should be remembered that the personal or family name precedes the totem, which grows out of it, as seen by the conditions still prevailing amongst the very lowest peoples (Fuegians, Papuans of Torres Strait[5]).'
I am indebted in various ways to assistance, chiefly in the interchange of ideas, from Mr. A. C. Haddon, Mr. G. L. Gomme, Miss Burne, and Mr. A. E. Crawley, author of The Mystic Rose. Mr. Crawley kindly read the book, or most of it, before publication, and collaborated most efficiently in the way of suggesting objections. It is not implied that any of these students accept the ideas of the two authors. I regret that it has been found impossible to wait for the publication of a new book by Mr. A. W. Howitt, from which we may expect much new information.
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.
[1] Man, Past and Present, Cambridge, 1899, pp. 396, 397.
[2] Royal Commentaries, i. 47.
[3] The Import of the Totem, Amer. Ass., Detroit, 1897.
[4] M. Chaffanjon, Tour du Monde, 1888, lvi. 348.
[5] Ethnology, pp. 9, 11.
CONTENTS
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—