expressions of descent is found in the title
"grandfather" given to the chameleon by the Chameleon clan of the
Herrero of German Southwest Africa, but a comparison with the similar
title given by the Zulus to a sort of divine ancestor, and with the
Herrero mythical stories of the origins of certain clans, suggests that
the conception is vague.

+450+. In addition to the more direct statements there are traditions or
myths that connect the origin of clans with animals or plants through
the intermediation of gods or human beings, by marriage, or some other
relation. The Bushbuck clan of the East African Baganda worship a
lion-god, who is called an ancestor and is said to have turned into a
lion at his death. Fluctuating opinions (some persons holding to direct
descent from a nonhuman object, others to friendly relations between it
and the ancestor) are reported in Sumatra, Borneo, and the Moluccas.
The Hurons regarded the rattlesnake as a kinsman of their ancestor. The
origin of the clan or family is referred to marriage with an animal by
the Borneo Dyaks and various tribes on the African Gold Coast, and to
marriage with a plant by some of the Upper Liluet;[804] and the origin
of the crests in Northwestern America is ascribed to adventures with
crest animals.[805] In the Trobriand group of islands (lying to the
northeast of British New Guinea) the totems are said to have been
brought by the first men; naturally it is not explained whence and how
the men got them.[806]

+451+. These instances of indirect origination (to which others of the
sort might be added) show a variety of points of view, and may be
variously interpreted. They may be regarded as declensions from an
earlier belief in the direct descent of the clan from the totem, or as
independent conceptions that never grew into this belief. Both these
ideas of the form of descent are found in widely separated regions and
in communities differing one from another in general culture and in the
degree of importance they attach to the totemic constitution. The
possibility of general agreement in myths, with difference in details,
between tribes remote from one another is illustrated by the creation
myths of the Australian Arunta (who have an elaborate totemism) and the
Thompson River Indians of Northwestern America (who have no clan totems,
secret societies, or dramatic ceremonies); both relate transformations
of primitive unformed persons, but in the former the creato