by a badge, and might thence derive a name, and, later,
might invent a myth of their descent from the object which the badge
represented. I do not know whether it has been observed that the
totems are, as a rule, objects which may be easily drawn or tattooed,
and still more easily indicated in gesture-language. Some interesting
facts will be found in the _First Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology_, p. 458 (Washington, 1881). Here we read how the 'Crow'
tribe is indicated in sign-language by 'the hands held out on each
side, striking the air in the manner of flying.' The Bunaks (another
bird tribe) are indicated by an imitation of the cry of the bird. In
mentioning the Snakes, the hand imitates the crawling motion of the
serpent, and the fingers pointed up behind the ear denote the Wolves.
Plainly names of the totem sort are well suited to the convenience of
savages, who converse much in gesture-language. Above all, the very
nature of totemism shows that it took its present shape at a time when
men, animals, and plants were conceived of as physically akin; when
names were handed on through the female line; when exogamy was the
rule of marriage, and when the family theoretically included all
persons bearing the same family name, that is, all who claimed kindred
with the same plant, animal, or object, whether the persons are really
akin or not. These ideas and customs are not the ideas natural to men
organised in the patriarchal family.

The second question now arises: Can we infer from survivals of
totemism among Aryans that these Aryans had once been organised on the
full totemistic principle, probably with polyandry, and certainly with
female descent? Where totemism now exists in full force, there we find
exogamy and derivation of the family name through women, the latter
custom indicating uncertainty of male parentage in the past. Are we to
believe that the same institutions have existed wherever we find
survivals of totemism? If this be granted, and if the supposed
survivals of totemism among Aryans be accepted as genuine, then the
Aryans have distinctly come through a period of kinship reckoned
through women, with all that such an institution implies.[223] For
indications that the Aryans of Greece and India have passed through
the stage of totemism, the reader may be referred to Mr. M'Lennan's
'Worship of Plants and Animals' (_Fortnightly Review_, 1869, 1870).
The evidence there adduced is not all of the same v