led after it."

(1) Dalton, p. 63.

(2) Ibid., p. 189.

(3) Ibid., p. 166.

(4) Ibid., p. 254.

An excellent sketch of totemism in India is given by Mr. H. H. Risley of
the Bengal Civil Service:--(1)

(1) The Asiatic Quarterly, No. 3, Essay on "Primitive Marriage in
Bengal."

"At the bottom of the social system, as understood by the average Hindu,
stands a large body of non-Aryan castes and tribes, each of which is
broken up into a number of what may be called totemistic exogamous
septs. Each sept bears the name of an animal, a tree, a plant, or of
some material object, natural or artificial, which the members of that
sept are prohibited from killing, eating, cutting, burning, carrying,
using, etc."(1)

(1) Here we may note that the origin of exogamy itself is merely part
of a strict totemistic prohibition. A man may not "use" an object within
the totem kin, nor a woman of the kin. Compare the Greek idiom (Greek
text omitted).

Mr. Risley finds that both Kolarians, as the Sonthals, and Dravidians,
as the Oraons, are in this state of totemism, like the Hos and Mundas.
It is most instructive to learn that, as one of these tribes rises in
the social scale, it sloughs off its totem, and, abandoning the common
name derived from bird, beast, or plant, adopts that of an eponymous
ancestor. A tendency in this direction has been observed by Messrs.
Fison and Howitt even in Australia. The Mahilis, Koras and Kurmis,
who profess to be members of the Hindu community, still retain the
totemistic organisation, with names derived from birds, beasts and
plants. Even the Jagannathi Kumhars of Orissa, taking rank immediately
below the writer-caste, have the totems tiger, snake, weasel, cow, frog,
sparrow and tortoise. The sub-castes of the Khatlya Kumhars explain away
their totem-names "as names of certain saints, who, being present at
Daksha's Horse-sacrifice, transformed themselves into animals to escape
the wrath of Siva," like the gods of Egypt when they fled in bestial
form from the wrath of Set.

Among the non-Aryan tribes the marriage law has the totemistic sanction.
No man may marry a woman of his totem kin. When the totem-name is
changed for an eponym, the non-Aryan, rising in the social scale,
is practically in the same position as the Brahmans, "divided into
exogamous sections (gotras), the members of which profess to be
descended from the mythical rishi or inspired saint whose name the gotra
bears".