e, but the cases may be distorted reminiscences of what might occur
under totemism, namely, a son taking the wives of his father other than
his own mother, when those were of a different totem from his own. Under
totemism, brothers and sisters by different mothers having different
totems, might possibly unite, and such unions are found in many
mythologies. Later, when totemism passed away, the unions, regarded with
horror, would be supposed to take place between children by the same
mother. According to totem law, a father might unite with his daughter,
since she was of her mother's totem, but in practice this was frowned
upon. Polygamy also may co-exist with totemism, and of course involves
the counting of descent through the mother as a rule. If, as is
suggested by the "debility" of the Ultonians, and by other evidence, the
couvade was a Celtic institution, this would also point to the existence
of the matriarchate with the Celts. To explain all this as pre-Aryan, or
to say that the classical notices refer to non-Aryan tribes and that the
evidence in the Irish sagas only shows that the Celts had been
influenced by the customs of aboriginal tribes among whom they
lived,[763] is to neglect the fact that the customs are closely bound up
with Celtic life, while it leaves unexplained the influence of such
customs upon a people whose own customs, according to this theory, were
so totally different. The evidence, taken as a whole, points to the
existence of totemism among the early Celts, or, at all events, of the
elements which elsewhere compose it.

* * * * *

Celtic animal worship dates back to the primitive hunting and pastoral
period, when men worshipped the animals which they hunted or reared.
They may have apologised to the animal hunted and slain--a form of
worship, or, where animals were not hunted or were reared and
worshipped, one of them may have been slain annually and eaten to obtain
its divine power. Care was taken to preserve certain sacred animals
which were not hunted, and this led to domestication, the abstinence of
earlier generations leading to an increased food supply at a later time,
when domesticated animals were freely slain. But the earlier sacramental
slaying of such animals survived in the religious aspect of their
slaughter at the beginning of winter.[764] The cult of animals was also
connected with totemic usage, though at a later stage this cult was
replaced by t