APPENDIX



SOME AMERICAN THEORIES OF TOTEMISM



With some American theories of the origin of totemtsm, I find
it extremely dilHcult to deal. They ought not to be neglected,
that were disrespectful to the valued labours of the school of
the American " Bureau of Ethnology." But the expositions are
scattered in oumerous Reports, and are scarcely focussed with
distinctness. Again, the terminology of American inquirers, the
technical words whicli they use, differ from those which we em-
ploy. That fact would be unimportant if they employed their
technical terms consistently. Unluckily this is not their prac-
tice. The terms "clan," "gens," and "phratry" sre by them
used with bewildering inconsistency, and are often interchange-
able. When "clan" or gens, means, now (i) a collection of
gtnlts, or (a) of families, or (j) of phratries, and again (4)
" clan " means a totem Itin with female descent ; and again (5)
a village community ; while a phratry may be (i) an exogamous
moiety of a tribe, or (2) a "family," or (3) a magical society;
and a gens may be (i) a clan, or (a) a "family," or (i) an
aggregate of families, or (4) a totem Icin with male descent, or
(s) a magical society, while "tribal" and " sub-tribal divisions "
are vaguely spoken of — the European student is apt to be
puided 1 All these varieties of lenninology occur too frequently
in the otherwise most praiseworthy works of some of the Ameri-
can School of Anthropologists, I had coUected the examples,
but to give them at length would occupy considerable space,
and the facts are only too apparent to every reader.^

Once more, and this point is of essentia! importance, the
recent writers on Cotemism in America dwell mainly on the

' Compare Mr. N. W. Tliomui ciitidnni of Mr. Hill-Tout, in .AAia, May,
June, Julj 1904.
