with witchcraft, in which skins and especially seals' flippers were much used. Within the last ten years a man pulled down and rebuilt his byre because of some 'ongoings with a selkie flipper.' The names are very old and must be of Scandinavian origin. Yours sincerely, DUNCAN J. ROBERTSON. In addition to these names of eaters,' simple names of animals, we have shown in the text, are as commonly given to English villages as totemic names are given to the totem groups of savages. ANCIENT Hebrew Village NAMES In Robertson Smith's Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (p. 219) he says: 'I have argued that many place-names formed from the names of animals are also to be regarded as having been originally taken from the totem clans that inhabited them.' Now where totemism is a living institution I know no instance in which a locality is named from the totem clan that inhabits it.' The thing cannot be where female descent prevails, as many totems are then everywhere mixed in each local group. Where male descent prevails we do, indeed, get localities inhabited by groups mainly of the same totem name. But their tendency is to let the totem name merge in the territorial title, the name of the locality, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen prove for the Arunta and Mr. Dorsey for the Sioux. Having found no instance where a totemic group gives its totem name to the locality which it inhabits, I was struck by a remark of Dean Stanley in his Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church (p. 319, 1870). He there mentions the villages of Judah which were the scenes of some of Samson's adventures (Joshua xv. 32, 33; Judges i. 35). The villages of Lebaoth, Shaalbim, Zorah, respectively mean Lions, Jackals, and Hornets. Nobody eats any of these three animals, and they may be names of totem groups transferred to localities—though of this usage I know no example among savage totemists—or they may merely be old Hebrew village sobriquets, as in England and France. On consulting the Encyclopædia Biblica, under Names' (vol. iii. 3308, 3316) we find that 'there can be no doubt that many place-names' in Palestine are identical with names of animals.' Those applied to towns' (we may read villages probably) are much more common in the south than in the north. We have Stags, Lions, Leopards, Gazelles, Wild Asses, Foxes, Hyænas, Cows, Lizards, Hornets, Scorpions, Serpents, and so on. These may have been derived from old totem kins, though I think that theory improbable, or from the frequency of hornets or scorpions in this or that place, or the villagers' sobriquet may have become the village name. The last hypothesis has hitherto been overlooked. The frequency of animal and plant names in the Roman gentes, Fabii (Beans), Asinii (Asses), Caninii (Dogs), is an instance that readily occurs. These may be survivals of totemism or of less archaic sobriquets, while the totem names themselves, as we have argued, may have had their origin in sobriquets. APPENDIX B THE BA RONGA TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP THE hypothesis that the Australian terms of relationship, as they now exist, really denote status in customary law, may perhaps derive corroboration from the classificatory system as it appears among the Ba Ronga, near Delagoa Bay. Here the natives are rich, industrial, commercial, and polygamous to the full extent of their available capital. Polygamy, male kinship, and wife purchase, with elaborate laws of dowry and divorce, have modified and complicated the terms of relationship. They are described by an excellent authority, M. Henri Junod, a missionary.1 M. Junod has obviously never heard of the 'classificatory system' among other races, and his explanation of certain 'avoidances,' such as between the husband and his wife's brother, father, and mother, is probably incorrect (turning, as it does, on the laws of wife-price and divorce), though it appears now to be accepted by the Ba Ronga themselves. But what more concerns us is the nature of terms of relationship. These terms denote status in customary law, determined by sex and seniority. Among the Basuto, a man is otherwise related to his sister than to his brother; his children are related to their paternal otherwise than to their maternal uncles and aunts,' and Les Baronga, Attinger, Neufchatel, 1898, pp. 82-87. to their cousins in the same style. Relative seniority, entailing relative social duties, is also expressed in the terms of relationship. The maternal aunt, senior to the mother, is grandmother.' The children of my father's brother and of my mother's sister, 'brothers' or are my sisters; the children of my maternal uncle and paternal aunt are not my brothers' and 'sisters.' The children of a man's inferior wives call the chief wife 'grandmother,' and the other wives, not their mother, 'maternal aunts.' 1 The son of my wife's sister is my 'son,' because I may succeed to her husband on his death, and his father calls me 'brother.' The maternal uncle is the mere butt of his nephew, the uncle's wives are the nephew's potential wives: he is one of the heirs to them. This kind of uncle (maternal) is not one of the tribal 'fathers' of the nephew, but the paternal uncle is, and is treated with the utmost respect. In brief, each name for a 'relationship' is a name carrying certain social duties or privileges, dependent on sex and seniority. We have no such customary laws, and need no such names— the names are the result and expression of the Basuto customary laws. Had we such ideas of duty and privilege, then they would be expressed in our terms of relationship, which would be numerous. My maternal uncle would have a name denoting the man with whose wife I may flirt. The wife of my brother-inlaw is the woman whom I must treat with the most distant respect. If I am a woman, my father's sister's husband (my 'uncle by marriage') is a man whose wife I may become, and so forth endlessly. Consequently there is a wealth of terms of relationship, just because of the peculiarities of Ba Ronga customary law. 1 Op. cit. pp. 487-489. INDEX ABORIGINAL man, Mr. Darwin's view of, 209; Mr. Atkinson on, 220 Age distinction and the classifica- Altruism, possible germ of, in American ethnological terms, 10 Annamese family relationships, Dr. Westermarck on, 240 Anomaly, totem, among the Arunta, 85 Anthropoid adult males unsocial, Aristotle and early human society, Arunta tribe of Central Australia, to 2, 11; descent reckoned in the evolution, 70; totemism, 70; tion of law, 236; wives procured not of Australian group marriage, Messrs. 12; on totemism, 122; on totem 'Avoidance,' custom of, Mr. Atkin- and son-in-law, 268; its origin, Avoidance of mother-in-law, 270, BACHOFEN'S views on maternal kin- Baiame, Australian divinity, 5, 29, Banks Island, two class divisions in, Ba Ronga terms of relationship, 301 Bishop, Rev. A., on Hawaiian mar- Blood kinship implied by totem Breeding between sire and daughter, British Columbia clan totems, Mr. CALABAR 'bush-souls,' 143 Chattan, Clan, crest of the, 163 Clan (phratry) relationship, Mr. Clandestine intercourse preliminary Class system, the, 35; and Mr. Class system with male descent Class and generation correspond, Class names, Herr Cunow on, 113, 118; Dr. Durkheim on, 118; Mr. Classes, Mr. Morgan's view of their Classificatory system, Mr. Atkinson |