owed with an
intelligence and strength, which often surpass those of mere ordinary
human beings. (L. Sternberg, "Die Religion der Giljaken", "Archiv fur
Religionswissenschaft", VIII. (1905), page 248.) The Borororos, an
Indian tribe of Brazil, will have it that they are parrots of a gorgeous
red plumage which live in their native forests. Accordingly they treat
the birds as their fellow-tribesmen, keeping them in captivity, refusing
to eat their flesh, and mourning for them when they die. (K. von den
Steinen, "Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens" (Berlin, 1894),
pages 352 sq., 512.))

This sense of the close relationship of man to the lower creation is the
essence of totemism, that curious system of superstition which unites
by a mystic bond a group of human kinsfolk to a species of animals or
plants. Where that system exists in full force, the members of a totem
clan identify themselves with their totem animals in a way and to an
extent which we find it hard even to imagine. For example, men of the
Cassowary clan in Mabuiag think that cassowaries are men or nearly so.
"Cassowary, he all same as relation, he belong same family," is the
account they give of their relationship with the long-legged bird.
Conversely they hold that they themselves are cassowaries for all
practical purposes. They pride themselves on having long thin legs like
a cassowary. This reflection affords them peculiar satisfaction when
they go out to fight, or to run away, as the case may be; for at such
times a Cassowary man will say to himself, "My leg is long and thin, I
can run and not feel tired; my legs will go quickly and the grass will
not entangle them." Members of the Cassowary clan are reputed to be
pugnacious, because the cassowary is a bird of very uncertain temper and
can kick with extreme violence. (A.C. Haddon, "The Ethnography of
the Western Tribe of Torres Straits", "Journal of the Anthropological
Institute", XIX. (1890), page 393; "Reports of the Cambridge
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits", V. (Cambridge, 1904),
pages 166, 184.) So among the Ojibways men of the Bear clan are reputed
to be surly and pugnacious like bears, and men of the Crane clan to
have clear ringing voices like cranes. (W.W. Warren, "History of the
Ojibways", "Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society", V. (Saint
Paul, Minn. 1885), pages 47, 49.) Hence the savage will often speak of
his totem animal as his father or his brother, and will ne