In another case we saw how all the people of one household regard
themselves as related to the crocodiles and specially favoured by them,
explaining the relation as due to one of their ancestors having become
a crocodile. In another case we saw that some ill-defined relation
to the gibbon is claimed by a community of Kenyahs whose house is
decorated with carvings of the form of the gibbon, and whose members
will not kill the gibbon. And in yet another case we saw that a Kayan
house is decorated with conventionalised carvings of some animal
whose species has been forgotten by the community. In each of these
last three cases, it seems highly probable that the special relation
to the animal was established by some such process as we see going
on in the preceding case; so that we seem to have in this series one
case of incipient totemism and others illustrating various stages of
decay of abortive beginnings of totemism. And it is easy to imagine
how in the absence of unfavourable conditions such beginnings might
grow to a fully developed totem-system. For suppose that in any one
community there happened to be at one time two or more prosperous
families, each claiming to be related with and protected by some
species of animal as the result of friendly overtures made by the
animals to members of the families in their dreams.
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