The expression 'totemic age' involves a widened application of the term 'totem.' This word is taken from the language of the Ojibways or, as the English call them, the Chippewa Indians. To these Indians of the Algonquin race, the 'totem' signified first of all a group. Persons belong to the same totem if they are fellow-members in a group which forms part of a tribe or of a clan. The term 'clan,' suggested by the clan divisions of the Scottish Highlanders, is the one usually employed by English ethnologists in referring to the smaller divisions of a tribe. The tribe consists of a number of clans, and each clan may include several totems. As a rule, the totem groups bear animal names. In North America, for example, there was an eagle totem, a wolf totem, a deer totem, etc. In this case the animal names regularly refer to particular clans within a tribe; in other places, as, for example, in Australia, they designate separate groups within a clan. Moreover, the totem animal is also usually regarded as the ancestral animal of the group in question. 'Totem,' on the one hand, is a group name, and, on the other, a name indicative of ancestry. In the latter connection it has also a mythological significance. These various ideas, however, interplay in numerous ways. Some of the meanings may recede, so that totems have frequently become a mere nomenclature of tribal divisions, while at other times the idea of ancestry, or, perhaps also, the cult significance, predominates. The idea gained ground until, directly or indirectly, it finally permeated all phases of culture. It is in this sense that the entire period pervaded by this culture may be called the 'totemic age.'
Even in its original significance--as a name for a group of members of a tribal division or for the division itself--the conception of the totem is connected with certain characteristic phenomena of this period, distinguishing it particularly from the culture of primitive man. I refer to _tribal division_ and _tribal organization_. The horde, in which men are united purely by chance or at the occasional call of some undertaking, only to scatter again when this is completed, has disappeared. Nor is it any longer merely the single family that firmly binds individuals to one another; in addition to it we find the tribal division, which originates in accordance with a definite law of tribal organization and is subject to specific norms of custom. These norms, and their fixed place in the beliefs and feelings of the tribal members, are connected with the fact that originally, at all events, the totem animal was regarded, for the most part, as having not merely given its name to a group of tribal members but as having actually been its forefather. In so far, animal ancestors apparently preceded human ancestors. Bound up with this is the further fact that these animal ancestors possessed a cult. Thus, ancestor cult also began with the cult of animals, not with that of human ancestors. Aside from specific ceremonies and ceremonial festivals, this animal cult originally found expression primarily in the relations maintained toward the totem animal. It was not merely a particular animal that was to a certain extent held sacred, but every representative of the species. The totem members were forbidden to eat the flesh of the totem animal, or were allowed to do so only under specific conditions. A significant counter-phenomenon, not irreconcilable with this, is the fact that on certain occasions the eating of the totem flesh constituted a sort of ceremony. This likewise implies that the totem animal was held sacred. When this conception came into the foreground, the totem idea became extended so as to apply, particularly in its cult motives and effects, to plants, and sometimes even to stones and other inanimate objects. This, however, obviously occurred at a later time.
From early times on, the phenomena of totemism have been accompanied by certain _forms of tribal organization_. Every tribe is first divided, as a rule, into two halves. Through a further division, a fairly large number of clans arise, which, in turn, eventually split up into subclans and separate totem groups. Each of these groups originally regarded some particular totem animal or other totem object as sacred. The most important social aspect of this totemic tribal organization, however, consists in the fact that it involved certain norms of custom regulating the intercourse of the separate groups with one another. Of these norms, those governing marriage relations were of first importance. The tribal organization of this period was bound up with an important institution, _exogamy_, which originated in the totemic age. In the earliest primitive period every tribal member could enter into marriage with any woman of the tribe whom he might choose; according to the Veddahs, even marriage between brother and sister was originally not prohibited. Thus, endogamy prevailed within the primitive horde. This, of course, does not mean that there was no marriage except within the narrow circle of blood relationship, but merely that marriage was permitted between close relatives, more particularly between brothers and sisters. The exogamy characteristic of totemic tribal organization consists in the fact that no marriages of any kind are allowed except between members of different tribal divisions. A member of one particular group can enter into marriage only with one of another group, not with a person belonging to his own circle. By this means, totemic tribal organization gains a powerful influence on custom. Through marriage it comes into relation with all phenomena connected with marriage, with birth and death and the ideas bound up with them, with the initiation ceremonies in which the youths are received into the association of men, etc. As a result of the magical significance acquired by the totem animal, special associations are formed. These become united under the protection of a totem animal and give impetus to the exoteric cult associations, which, in their turn, exercise a profound influence upon the conditions of life. Though it is probable that these associations had their origin in the above-mentioned men's clubs, their organizing principle was the totem animal and its cult.
Besides its influence on matters connected with the relations of the sexes, the totem animal was the source of several other ideas. After the separate tribal group has come to feel itself united in the cult of the totem animal, a single individual may acquire a particular guardian animal of his own. Out of the tribal totem there thus develops the individual totem. Then, again, the different sexes, the men and the women of the tribe, acquire their special totem animals. These irradiations of the totemic conception serve partly to extend it and partly to give it an irregular development. Of the further phenomena that gradually come to the foreground during the totemic age, one of the most important is the growing influence of dominant individual personalities. Such personalities, of course, were not unknown even to the primitive horde, on the occasion of important undertakings. But tribal organization for the first time introduces a permanent leadership on the part of single individuals or of several who share the power. Thus, totemism leads to _chieftainship_ as a regular institution--one that later, of course, proves to be among the foremost factors in the dissolution of the age that gave it birth. For chieftainship gives rise to political organization; the latter culminates in the State, which, though destroying the original tribal organization, is, nevertheless, itself one of the last products of totemic tribal institutions.
With the firmer union of tribal members there comes also _tribal warfare_. So long as primitive man remains comparatively unaffected by other peoples, and particularly by those of a different cultural level, he lives, on the whole, in a state of peace. An individual may, of course, occasionally raise his weapon against another person, but there are no tribal wars. These do not appear until the period of totemism, with whose firm social organization they are closely connected. The tribe feels itself to be a unit, as does likewise each subordinate clan and group. Hence, related tribes may unite in common undertakings. More frequently, however, they fall into dissension, and warfare must decide their claims to the possession of territory or to a disputed hunting-ground. This warfare finds contributory causes in tribal migrations. New peoples, some of them perhaps from strange tribes, enter into a territory and crowd out its inhabitants. Thus, war and migration are closely connected. Strife between tribes and peoples--that is, warfare--begins with culture in general, particularly with the most primitive social culture, as we may doubtless designate totemism in distinction from the still more primitive life of the horde.
This leads to a number of further changes. Tribal ownership of the land becomes more firmly established, as does also the custom of allotting a particular share to the clan. Personal property, moreover, comes to be more and more differentiated from the possessions of the group. Trade, which in primitive times was almost entirely restricted to secret barter, becomes public, and is finally widened into tribal commerce. When this occurs, great changes in external culture are inaugurated. Implements, weapons, and articles of dress and of adornment are perfected. This stage having been attained, the totemic age advances to a utilization of the soil in a way that is unknown to primitive man. The land is cultivated by means of agricultural implements. Of these, however, the hoe long continues to be the only one; though it supplants the digging-stick, its use depends on human power alone. The care and breeding of animals is also undertaken; the herdsman's or, as it is usually called, the nomadic, life is inaugurated. The breeding of useful domestic animals, in particular, is very closely connected with totemism. The animal, which at the beginning of the period was regarded as sacred, acquires the status of a work animal. It loses its dominion over mankind; instead, it becomes a servant, and, as a result, its cult significance gradually vanishes. The very moment, however, that marks the passing of the sacred animal into the useful animal also signalizes the end of the totemic era and the beginning of the age of heroes and gods.
These various traits are far from giving us a complete picture of the wide ramifications of totemic ideas and customs. Enough has been said, however, to indicate how the totemic conception first widens and deepens its influence, permeating the external social organization no less than the separate phases of society, and then finally leads on to its own dissolution. It is precisely this that justifies us in calling the entire period the totemic age. Yet the boundaries of this period are naturally much less clearly defined, or sharply demarcated as to beginning and end, than are those of the preceding primitive age. Man is primitive so long as he is essentially limited in his immediate means of support to that which nature directly offers him or to the labour of his own hands. But even in its beginnings the totemic age transcends these conditions. Tribal organization and the connected phenomena of war, migration, and the beginnings of open trade relations are cultural factors which from the outset represent an advance beyond the primitive state. But the lower limit of the age cannot be definitely fixed; still less can we determine the point at which it terminates. The chieftain of the totemic age is the forerunner of the ruler who appears in the succeeding period. Similarly, totem animals are even more truly the precursors of the later herd, and of agricultural animals. Thus, it is not at all permissible to speak merely of _a_ culture, as one may do in the case of the primitive age. There are a number of different cultures--indeed, several levels of culture, which are in part co-existent but in part follow upon one another. Their only similarity is the fact that they all exhibit the fundamental characteristics of the totemic age. Consider the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Negritos of the Philippines, the inland and forest-dwelling tribes of Malacca. When we have described the general cultural conditions of one of these tribes, we have given the essential features of all. This, however, is far from true in the case of totemism, for this includes many forms of culture and various periods of development. Even in speaking of levels of culture we may do so only with the reservation that each level in its turn includes within it a large number of separate forms of culture, of numerous sorts and gradations. Moreover, the external culture, reflected in dress and habitation, in personal decoration, in implements and weapons, in food and its preparation, does not in the least parallel the social phenomena represented by tribal organization, marriage relations, and forms of rulership. Though the general character of the Polynesian peoples permits their inclusion within the totemic age, their tribal organization exhibits the characteristics of totemic society only imperfectly. In other aspects of their culture, however, they rank far higher than the Australians or some of the Melanesian tribes; these possess a very complex social organization, but are, nevertheless, only slightly superior, on the whole, to primitive peoples. Thus, the various phases of totemic culture may develop in relative independence of one another, even though they are in constant interaction. This is true particularly in the sense that the more developed totemic customs and cults occur even on low cultural levels, whereas, on the other hand, they more and more disappear with the progress of culture.
