Kashyap from _kachhap_,
a tortoise; Taittiri from _titar_, a partridge, and so on. Similarly
the origin of other Rishis is attributed to animals, as Rishishringa
to an antelope, Mandavya to a frog, and Kanada to an owl. [91] An
inferior Rajput clan, Meshbansi, signifies descendants of the sheep,
while the name of the Baghel clan is derived from the tiger (bagh),
that of the Kachhwaha clan perhaps from _kachhap_, a tortoise, of
the Haihaivansi from the horse, of the Nagvansi from the cobra, and
of the Tomara clan from _tomar_, a club. The Karan or writer caste
of Orissa, similarly, have clans derived from the cobra, tortoise
and calf, and most of the cultivating and other middle castes have
clans with totemistic names. The usual characteristics of totemism,
in its later and more common form at any rate, are that members of a
clan regard themselves as related to, or descended from, the animal
or tree from which the clan takes its name, and abstain from killing
or eating it. This was perhaps not the original relation of the clan
to its clan totem in the hunting stage, but it is the one commonly
found in India, where the settled agricultural stage has long been
reached. The Bhaina tribe have among their totems the cobra, tiger,
leopard, vulture, hawk, monkey, wild dog, quail, black ant, and so
on. Members of a clan will not injure the animal after which it is
named, and if they see the corpse of the animal or hear of its death
they throw away an earthen cooking-pot, and bathe and shave themselves
as for one of the family. At a wedding the bride's father makes an
image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom's sept and places it
beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom worships the image, lighting
a sacrificial fire before it, and offers to it the vermilion which
he afterwards smears on the forehead of the bride. Women are often
tattooed with representations of their totem animal, and men swear
by it as their most sacred oath. A similar respect is paid to the
inanimate objects after which certain septs are named. Thus members
of the Gawad or cowdung clan will not burn cowdung cakes for fuel;
and those of the Mircha clan do not use chillies. One clan is named
after the sun, and when an eclipse occurs they perform the same formal
rites of mourning as others do on the death of their totem animal. The
Baghani clan of Majhwars, named after the tiger, think that a tiger
will not attack any member of their clan unless he has com