is in origin a heraldic representation of the clan totem, and that, as in Australia, totemic names of clans are older than names derived from localities or "houses." The house, the fixed building, is part of a society later than the first bearing of totemic names by clans. The crest, as a badge of rank and wealth, is later than the totem; social advance, houses, towns, heraldry, as a mark of rank, appear to me to cause the perplexities, and to place these American tribes outside of the totemism of people without rank, wealth, and houses and heraldry.
As I understand the case, the Tlingit clans did not originally, as Dr. Swanton seems to suppose, "occupy a certain place or live in a certain quarter of a town," whence they derived the place-names or town-names which they at present bear, according to Dr. Swanton. The Tlingit, now living in towns, and with clans of town-names, may naturally fancy that from the first their clans bore local or town-names. But society that begins in people who, like the Tlingit, have female descent, cannot form a local clan of descent, unless the men go to the homes of the women, which is not here the case. Originally I think their crests, as in Holmberg's report, were effigies of their clan totems, and the clans bore their totem names. But with advance to wealth, houses, and settled conditions, the local or town-names (as in other cases is certain) superseded the totem names of the clans, while the totem badge became, as the crest, a factor in a system of heraldry, to us perplexing. Certainly the facts as given by Dr. Swanton, may be envisaged in this way; the processes of change are simple, natural and have parallels elsewhere.
If a totemic clan chooses to wear the image of its totem as a badge, and has no other badge, all is plain sailing. But in British Columbia, as in Central British New Guinea, men, in proportion to their wealth and descent, wear an indefinite number of badges or "crests." "Although referred to by most writers as totems," says Mr. Swanton, speaking of the Haida tribe, "these crests have no proper totemic significance, their use being similar to that of the quarterings in heraldry, to mark the social position of the wearers."[1] Of course Australian totemists have no social position to be indicated by crests
- ↑ Quoted, T. and E., vol. iii. p. 281.
