ments
every member of a kin, one of whom had suffered at the hands of a
member of another kin, was bound to avenge the wrong upon the latter
kin. Such is the solidarity between members of a kin that vengeance
might be taken upon any member of the offending kin, though he might
be personally quite innocent. In the growth of civilisation vengeance
has gradually come to be concentrated upon the offender only." [152]
Thus the blood-feud appears to have originated from the idea of primary
retributive justice between clan and clan. When a member of a clan had
been killed, one of the offending clan must be killed in return. Who
he might be, and whether the original homicide was justifiable or not,
were questions not regarded by primitive man; motives were abstract
ideas with which he had no concern; he only knew that a piece of the
common life had been lopped off, and the instinct of self-preservation
of the clan demanded that a piece of the life of the offending clan
should be cut off in return. And the tie which united the kin was
eating and drinking together. "According to antique ideas those who
eat and drink together are by this very act tied to one another by
a bond of friendship and mutual obligation." [153] This was the bond
which first united the members of the totem-clan both among themselves
and with their totem. And the relationship with the totem could only
have arisen from the fact that they ate it. The belief in a common
life could not possibly arise in the totem-clan towards any animal or
plant which they did not eat or otherwise use. These they would simply
disregard. Nor would savages, destitute at first of any moral ideas,
and frequently on the brink of starvation, abstain from eating any
edible animal from sentimental considerations; and, as already seen,
the first totems were generally edible. They could not either have
in the first place eaten the totem ceremonially, as there would
be no reason for such a custom. But the ceremonial eating of the
domestic animal, which was the tie subsequently uniting the members
of the tribe, [154] cannot be satisfactorily explained except on
the hypothesis that it was evolved from the customary eating of the
totem-animal. Primitive savages would only feel affection towards the
animals which they ate, just as the affection of animals is gained
by feeding them. The objection might be made that savages could not
feel affection and kinship for an animal which they killed and