“but it may occasionally be a natural object, and, sometimes, though this is unusual, an artificial, or manufactured, object.”
Brenner nodded. On some worlds a discarded watch, or clock, or radio, had been treated as a totem by primitives. But, presumably they had taken it as alive. Did its hands not move, or did it not speak? Later, when the hands were still or the device silent, they would wait patiently for it to move or speak again, sometimes for generations, that it had ever done so becoming a matter of faith. Too, of course, to a savage almost any manufactured object might appear exotic, mysterious, divine, miraculous. Who could understand a rubber ball, its regularity, its consistency, its liveliness, or a glass jar, in its transparency, like ice that did not melt? But most totems were animals. The git, of course, was an animal.
“The animal is a much more likely totem,” said Rodriguez. “The primitive mind often regards animals, rather as children are wont to do, as fellow creatures, and equals.”
“That is now common on several worlds,” Brenner reminded Rodriguez.
“No, I mean really,” said Rodriguez. “I am not talking about moralistic cant, pretentious moral poses, prescribed hypocrisies, vacuous sentimentalities which are not taken seriously except by an occasional lunatic, and such, no, I mean really.”
“Oh,” said Brenner.
“That is quite different,” said Rodriguez.
“True,” said Brenner.
“The animal is alive, it is conscious, it is real, it seems much the same to the primitive as himself. He respects it. He talks to it. He worries about its feelings. He wonders what it is thinking. He begs its pardon if he must kill it.”
“Interesting,” said Brenner. To be sure, from his point of view, there did not seem much difference between the Pons and the git. To be sure, the Pons did have a culture. They could speak, and such.
“Thus it is a natural choice for the totem,” said Rodriguez.
“Doubtless,” said Brenner.
“The natural-object totem and the artificial-object totem, thus, would seem to presuppose the animal totem. Such totemisms would seem best understood as being derived from, or suggested by, a more primitive institution of totemism, namely, that of animal totemism.
“Their rareness, too,” said Brenner, “would suggest that they are more recent developments.”
“Yes,” said Rodriguez.
“I think it is very likely,” said Brenner, “that with the Pons we are encountering a very early, an almost original, a very pure form of totemism.”
“I would think so, “ said Rodriguez, “particularly considering their inferior mentality, their rudimentary cerebral development, their lack of a technology, their general primitiveness.”
“Correct,” said Brenner. He was thinking about the brunette, and how beautiful she had been in her chains, on his bed, helpless, pleading with him, tears in her eyes, to be merciless with her, to complete her subjugation, without which she could not be herself.
“The animal chosen is almost always a lively animal,” said Rodriguez.
Brenner nodded. Some typical totem animals, he knew, were birds, snakes, lizards and mice. The git, for example, was mouselike.
“Why?” asked Rodriguez.
“I don’t know,” said Brenner.
“Because they are thought to be ensouled,” said Rodriguez.
“There you touch on many common theories, of course,” said Brenner.
“Specify,” said Rodriguez.
“You know them better than I,” said Brenner.
“Which do you have in mind?”
“One theory thinks that the totem is a repository for the savage’s outward soul,” said Brenner, “that he hides it there, to keep it safe, that he himself may in effect become invulnerable. Another is that the spirits of the dead enter into the totem animals and live on in this fashion. Thus the animals may be reverenced, and thought of as ancestors, and such.”
“Such theories seem to me unlikely,” said Rodriguez. “Surely the savage is familiar with his own vulnerability, or, if not his own, that of others. Surely he has seen tribal members die while the totem animal survives. Thus his soul is not in the totem animal, who keeps it safe for him. Similarly, if he thought it was his own soul which was in the totem animal, it seems unlikely that he would refer to the totem animal as “father” and “ancestor.” It also seems quite unlikely that the savage believes that the spirits of the dead enter into the totem animal. There is presumably one totem, so to speak, not many, not thousands, or hundreds of thousands, one for each departed soul. Too, individual totem animals can obviously die. If each contained a departed soul this might seem to suggest that that soul died, too, which consequence would presumably be regarded as at least unwelcome, if