applies to all ages, even the most primitive. Among their
village sobriquets I note at a hasty glance :
Largitzen
Cows
Houneal
Frogs
Angoulême
Lizards
Artois
Dogs
Aire
Pigeons
Avalon
Birds
Eaters of Old Ewes
Eaters of„ Onions
Eaters of„ Crows
and we shall see that many Sioux groups, many English villages are blazoned, as in Mr. Haddon's theory, by the names of the things which they eat. Thus, among very early men, the names by which the groups knew each others' neighbours would be names given from without. To call them "nicknames" is to invite the objection that nicknames are essentially derisive, and that groups so low could not yet use the language of derision. I see no reason why early articulate-speaking men (or even men whose language is gesture-language) should be so modern as to lack all sense of humour. But the names need not have been derisive. If these peoples had the present savage belief in the wakan, or mystic power, of animals, the names may even have been laudatory. I ask for no more than names conferred from without, call them nicknames, sobriquets, or what you like.
We are acquainted with no race that is just entering on totemism, unless we agree with Mr. Hill-Tout that totemism is nascent among the Salish tribe, who live in village communities. Consequently we cannot prove that early hostile groups would name each other after plants and aninials. I am only able to demonstrate that, alike in English and French folklore, and among American tribes who reckon by the male line, who are agricultural and settled, the villages or groups are named, from without, after plants and animals, and after what they are supposed to be specially apt to use
