be perfectly safe within a
considerable area. But this is not possible where a group of men is
composed of various clans, a given animal being spared by one clan but
freely hunted and killed by all the other clans[921]--a state of things
that was presumably universal.

+567+. Further, it is difficult to discover any historical connection
between the actual cases of domestication of animals and reverence for
these as totems. It is unfortunate for the decision of this question
that in the two principal totemic centers, Australia and North America,
there are very few native domesticable animals--only one (a species of
dog) in Australia, and two (dog and bison) in North America. The history
of the dog in North America, however, is suggestive: it has been
domesticated by totemic Redmen for hunting purposes and by nontotemic
Eskimo for drawing sledges--that is, its economic use seems to be
independent of totemic considerations. Other cases of divergence between
employment of animals and their position as totems have been cited in
Uganda, for example;[922] but civilization is relatively far advanced in
Uganda, and in such cases we cannot infer original conditions from
existing customs.

+568+. It may fairly be surmised that observation in some cases led to
the domestic use of animals. The value of the milk of cattle, goats, and
mares as food may have been suggested to men who were acquainted with
the life of these animals; and valuing them for their milk, their owners
would abstain from eating them except under pressure of hunger or for
ceremonial purposes. Such a procedure does not seem to be beyond the
capacities of very simple communities. Chance may have suggested the
function of seeds in the growth of plants, and, agriculture once entered
on, the labor of animals would gradually be utilized. So far as regards
artistic representations, these are found everywhere, and their
occurrence on totemic poles (as, for example, among the Haidas of Queen
Charlotte Islands) cannot be regarded as a special product of totemism.

+569+. Considering the obscurity of the subject, it is doubtless wise to
refrain from offering a universal theory of the origin of domestication
of animals and plants. All that is here contended for is that the large
role sometimes assigned to totemism in this regard is not supported by
the facts now known to us. Future investigations may bring with them new
constructions of early history.

+570+. _Relation