ts to a two-group
arrangement as that from which the existing forms have come.

+439+. Exogamy served a good purpose in early stages of society, both
by preventing marriages between blood relations and by inducing a sense
of the sacredness of the marriage bond. Its long persistence shows that
it was regarded by most tribes as necessary for the maintenance of the
tribal life. Its restriction of individual freedom in the choice of
wives was an evil, and was in time modified and finally thrown off; but
it seems to have been the only means, discoverable by early society, by
which clans and tribes could live peaceably side by side, and it paved
the way for the establishment of the family proper.

+440+. This brief account of the most important adjunct of totemism may
serve to clear the way for the consideration of the totemic system.

+441+. Among the various relations that undeveloped communities sustain
to nonhuman things totemism has the peculiarity that it is an alliance
between a human group (clan or tribe) and a species of animals or
plants, or an inanimate natural object (as sun or moon), or, rarely, an
artificial object (usually an implement of labor).[789] The nonhuman
thing is regarded as a friend, and is respected and cared for
accordingly. When it is a species (animal or plant) every individual of
the species is held to bear this friendly relation to every individual
of the allied human group. Generally there is believed to be not only
similarity or identity of nature between the two (such identity of
nature between man and nonhuman things is everywhere an article of the
creed of savages) but a special intimacy, commonly a kinship of blood.
While the men of a group respect their ally, it, on its part, is
supposed to refrain from injuring them, and even in some cases to aid
them. It is credited with great power, such as in savage life all
nonhuman things are supposed to possess. The members of the human group
regard one another as brothers; this feeling, however, can hardly be
said to be peculiar to totemic organizations--it exists, more or less,
in all early associations, particularly in any one association as
against others.

+442+. While, therefore, we may take a certain clan alliance as a
fundamental fact of totemism, we find in various communities other
features of organization more or less closely combined with this into a
social unity. In every such case it is necessary to inquire whether the
feature in