was explained as an avatar of Zeus. The
process by which an anthropomorphic god or hero succeeds to the exploits
of animals, of theriomorphic gods and heroes, is the most common in
mythology, and is illustrated by actual practice in modern India. When
the Brahmins convert a pig-worshipping tribe of aboriginals, they tell
their proselytes that the pig was an avatar of Vishnu. The same process
is found active where the Japanese have influenced the savage Ainos, and
persuaded them that their bear- or dog-father was a manifestation of a
deity. We know from Plutarch ('Theseus') that, in addition to families
claiming descent from divine animals, one Athenian [Greek], the Ioxidae,
revered an ancestral plant, the asparagus. A vaguer indication of
totemism may perhaps be detected in the ancient theriomorphic statues of
Greek gods, as the Ram-Zeus and the Horse-headed Demeter, and in the
various animals and plants which were sacred to each god and represented
as his companions.

The hints of totemism among the ancient Irish are interesting. One hero,
Conaire, was the son of a bird, and before his birth his father (the
bird) told the woman (his mother) that the child must never eat the flesh
of fowls. 'Thy son shall be named Conaire, and that son shall not kill
birds.' {265a} The hero Cuchullain, being named after the dog, might not
eat the flesh of the dog, and came by his ruin after transgressing this
totemistic taboo. Races named after animals were common in ancient
Ireland. The red-deer and the wolves were tribes dwelling near Ossory,
and Professor Rhys, from the frequency of dog names, inclines to believe
in a dog totem in Erin. According to the ancient Irish 'Wonders of Eri,'
in the 'Book of Glendaloch,' 'the descendants of the wolf are in Ossory,'
and they could still transform themselves into wolves. {265b} As to our
Anglo-Saxon ancestors, there is little evidence beyond the fact that the
patronymic names of many of the early settlements of Billings, Arlings,
and the rest, are undeniably derived from animals and plants. The manner
in which those names are scattered locally is precisely like what results
in America, Africa, and Australia from the totemistic organisation.
{265c} In Italy the ancient custom by which animals were the leaders of
the Ver sacrum or armed migration is well known. The Piceni had for
their familiar animal or totem (if we may call it so) a woodpecker; the
Hirpini were like the 'descenda