crests by
different families, and in the bears, lions, eagles, the sun, moon and
stars and so forth, which still adorn the flags and are flaunted as the
insignia of the various nations. The names may not have been ORIGINALLY
adopted from any definite belief in blood-relationship with the animal
or other object in question; but when, as Robertson says (Pagan Christs,
p. 104), a "savage learned that he was 'a Bear' and that his father
and grandfather and forefathers were so before him, it was really
impossible, after ages in which totem-names thus passed current, that he
should fail to assume that his folk were DESCENDED from a bear."

As a rule, as may be imagined, the savage tribesman will on no account
EAT his tribal totem-animal. Such would naturally be deemed a kind of
sacrilege. Also it must be remarked that some totems are hardly suitable
for eating. Yet it is important to observe that occasionally, and
guarding the ceremony with great precautions, it has been an almost
universal custom for the tribal elders to call a feast at which
an animal (either the totem or some other) IS killed and commonly
eaten--and this in order that the tribesmen may absorb some virtue
belonging to it, and may confirm their identity with the tribe and with
each other. The eating of the bear or other animal, the sprinkling with
its blood, and the general ritual in which the participants shared its
flesh, or dressed and disguised themselves in its skin, or otherwise
identified themselves with it, was to them a symbol of their community
of life with each other, and a means of their renewal and salvation in
the holy emblem. And this custom, as the reader will perceive, became
the origin of the Eucharists and Holy Communions of the later religions.

Professor Robertson-Smith's celebrated Camel affords an instance of
this. (1) It appears that St. Nilus (fifth century) has left a detailed
account of the occasional sacrifice in his time of a spotless white
camel among the Arabs of the Sinai region, which closely resembles a
totemic communion-feast. The uncooked blood and flesh of the animal had
to be entirely consumed by the faithful before daybreak. "The slaughter
of the victim, the sacramental drinking of the blood, and devouring in
wild haste of the pieces of still quivering flesh, recall the details
of the Dionysiac and other festivals." (2) Robertson-Smith himself
says:--"The plain meaning is that the victim was devoured before its
life h