Word: totems
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...compare a prosperous bond-salesman of the American species with an Arunta tribesman is in the sociological sense by no means derogatory. Totems are as fundamental as anything in the curious network of superstitions, contracts, and shibboleths which arise from the social intermingling of individuals. The totem in both cases rests on a fairly common basis, a kindred, actual or supposed, and its manifestations its parades and its war cries, are equally noble or ridiculous...
There is then no flattering comparison, or no insulting deduction. But the rules of the totem, its taboos and its legends, are fairly well-known to us now, in the examples that have been found among primitive or barbaric races. What we fall to do is to realize that the experiences of these people are in a very real way similar to our own. Loyalty to a tribe of Samoan Indians exacts much the same sacrifice from the individual and returns to him much the same reward, only in different terms and units, as loyalty to an American college...
...great danger that always faced the primitive in his loyalties lay in the very strength of his allegiance, that strength of his allegiance, that strength which kept the totem valid long after its vital life-force had disappeared. The formal totem became sc fixed that life could depart from it, yet its magic suffered not, for man breaks his idols and his gods but reluctantly and a dead and meaningless symbol is better than no totem at all. And the very enthusiasm with which the artificial loyalty is buoyed does hurt to the reality and the force of the totem...
...Indians of the Taholah Reservation (Washington) finished an 80-foot totem pole, handsomely embellished with birds, reptiles and animals, carved and painted in barbaric colors. It is to be shipped to Washington via the Panama Canal, as a tribute to the administration of President Coolidge, will be erected on the White House grounds. It is done in gratitude for recent payments to Northwestern Indians for forest lands...
Another large section of the Report deals with American social life in the period immediately preceding the final catastrophe, and it should furnish fascinating reading not only for the social scientist but also for students of folklore and primitive religion. The survival of totemism as late as the twentieth century has often been disputed, but is now established as a historical fact. Newhaven and Princeton were the homes of the Bulldog and Tiger totems respectively, and these wild bands fought incessantly over the ground that had been formerly consecrated to learning. Evidence of totems at Cambridge is lacking;--there...