th
American relation. The family sacred symbols that are worshiped in some
places[898] are really family gods (whether or not they were originally
totems), developed, probably, under Brahmanic influence. The worship of
a tutelary spirit has sometimes coalesced with that of an ancestor, but
this is doubtless due to the collocation of two distinct cults; at a
certain stage an ancestor is naturally regarded as friend and protector.
The general potency termed "mana" is not to be connected particularly
with any one cult; it represents a conception that probably underlies
all ancient forms of worship.

+541+. It thus appears that several lines of social progress have proved
unfavorable to totemism, and to these movements it has generally
succumbed. Its home has been, and is, in isolated hunting communities;
agriculture and social intercourse have been fatal to it as to all early
forms of society based on a belief in kinship with nonhuman natural
objects.

+542+. It remains to mention the principal theories of the origin of
totemism that are or have been held, and to ask what part it has played
in the history of religion.

+543+. _Theories of the origin of totemism._ These may conveniently be
divided into such as refer the origin to individual action, and such as
refer it to the action of clans.

+544+. _Individualistic theories._ Among the earliest of theories were
those that explained the totemic constitution as due to a confusion in
the minds of savages between names and things. Individuals or families
might be named after animals, plants, and other objects, and these, it
was supposed, might come to be regarded as intimately associated with
human persons, and might be looked on with affection or reverence and
even worshiped.[899] Or, more definitely, it was held that, the origin
of such names being forgotten, reverence for the ancestors led to
reverence for the things after which they were named and identification
with them--a man whose ancestor was called "the Tiger" would think of
himself as descended from a tiger and as being of the tiger stock.[900]
It is now generally recognized, however, that the origin of so
widespread and influential a system of organization as totemism cannot
be referred to a mere misunderstanding of nicknames; and whether such
misunderstanding was general or natural in early times is open to doubt.

+545+. It sometimes happens that a man (generally a chief) announces
that after death he will