efrain from killing or eating a friendly animal or plant is a
simple mark of respect. The conception of special ability in a clan to
insure a supply of its totem for food is in accord with savage ideas of
magical endowment. When the custom of exogamy arose it would naturally
attach to the clan as the social unit.

+465+. In view of the diverse physical surroundings of the tribes of the
earth and their intellectual differences, it cannot be surprising that
they have combined these elements of organization in various ways. In
their efforts to secure food, good marriage relations, protection of
property, and defense against enemies, they have from time to time
adopted such measures as the circumstances made desirable and possible.
There is evidence that in some instances clans have changed their social
regulations, sometimes by a process of internal growth, sometimes by
borrowing from without. It is not always possible to trace such
movements, and it is impossible now to say what the earliest social
constitution of men was. The probability is that the earliest state was
an unformed one, without governmental or other institutions, and that
totemism was one of the first attempts to introduce order into society.
In accordance with what is said above, the term 'totemism' may be used
to mean particularly a simple alliance between men and nonhuman things,
and then more generally to mean such an alliance combined in whatever
way, with one or more of the particular customs described in preceding
paragraphs.[819]

+466+. _Geographical survey of totemistic usages._ If totemism be taken
in the simpler sense, as a certain sort of intimate relation between men
and nonhuman things, it will be found to be widely distributed in the
noncivilized world. Its occurrence becomes rarer in proportion as
adjuncts are attached to it; as is remarked above, it is hardly possible
to find a clan whose constitution embraces all adjuncts. Where usages
like exogamy occur, or where there is reverence for an object, without
belief in a definite, nontheistic relation between a human clan and a
nonhuman object, we cannot recognize totemism proper; such usages must
be treated as belonging to man's general attitude toward his nonhuman
associates. The question whether they represent germinal or decadent
totemism, or neither, must be considered separately in every case.

+467+. The two great totemistic regions of the world are Australia and
North America, and