A Modern Zoroastrian (ePub)

Excerpt: "...Another development of the belief in spirits is that of fetish-worship, in which superstitious reverence is paid to some stock or stone, tree or animal, in which a mysterious influence is supposed to reside, probably owing to its being the chosen abode of some powerful spirit. This is common among the negro races, and it takes a curious development among many races of American Indians, where the tribe is distinguished by the totem, or badge of some particular animal, such as the bear, the tortoise, or the hare, which is in some way supposed to be the patron spirit of the clan, and often the progenitor from whom they are descended. This idea is so rooted that intermarriage between men and women who have the same totem is prohibited as a sort of incest, and the daughter of a bear-mother must seek for a husband among the sons of the deer or fox. Possibly a vestige of the survival of this idea may be traced in the coat-of-arms of the Sutherland family, and the wild cat may have been the totem of the Clan Chattan, while the oak tree was that of the Clan Quoich, with whom they fought on the Inch of Perth. Be this as it may, it is clearly a most ancient and widespread idea, and prevails from Greenland to Australia; while it evidently formed the oldest element of the prehistoric religion of Egypt, where each separate province had its peculiar sacred animal, worshipped by the populace in one nome, and detested in the neighbouring one.'