he origin of this function of the crest and its
relation to the function of the totem is not clear; it may have arisen
in different ways in different places, or different conceptions may have
been combined in the same place. The decorative use is an independent
fact, having no necessary connection with clan organization; the demand
for decoration is universal among savages, and the employment of sacred
objects for this purpose is natural. Figures of such objects are used,
however, in magical procedures--abundantly, for example, in Central
Australia--and it is conceivable that such use by a clan may have
converted the totemic object into a symbol or device. The artistic
employment of figures of sacred objects has been developed on the
American Pacific Coast to a remarkable extent; the great poles standing
in front of houses or erected in memory of the dead have carved on them
histories of the relation of the family or of the deceased person to
certain animals and events. These so-called totem poles presuppose, it
is true, reverence for the sacred symbol, but the custom may possibly
have grown simply out of artistic and historical (or biographical)
motives.

+503+. Perhaps, however, we must assume or include another line of
development. The crest may be regarded either as the non-artistic
modification or degradation of an original true totem (due to diminished
reverence for animals and other causes), or as an employment of sacred
objects (for purposes of organization) that has not reached the
proportions of totemism proper. Which of these views will seem the more
probable will depend partly on the degree of importance assigned to
certain traditions and folk-stories of the Northwestern tribes, partly
on one's construction of the general history of totemistic observances.
In so obscure a subject a definite theory can hardly be maintained. The
large number of stories in which the beginnings of clan life are
attributed to marriages between clansmen and eponymous animals, or to
beneficent or other adventures with such animals, may appear to indicate
that there was an underlying belief in the descent of clans from
animals. On the other hand, in certain low tribes (in New Britain and
the Solomon Islands and elsewhere) the feeling of kinship with animals
is said to exist without the belief that they are ancestors, or the
animal is regarded as the representative of a human ancestor rather than
as itself the ancestor. This latter v