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Frazer, James George, Sir, 1854-1941

"The Golden Bough"

Hence, from the primitive point of view, it is
perfectly possible that a savage should have one soul in his sex
totem and another in his clan totem. However, as I have observed,
sex totems have been found nowhere but in Australia; so that as a
rule the savage who practises totemism need not have more than one
soul out of his body at a time.
If this explanation of the totem as a receptacle in which a man
keeps his soul or one of his souls is correct, we should expect to
find some totemic people of whom it is expressly said that every man
amongst them is believed to keep at least one soul permanently out
of his body, and that the destruction of this external soul is
supposed to entail the death of its owner. Such a people are the
Bataks of Sumatra. The Bataks are divided into exogamous clans
(_margas_) with descent in the male line; and each clan is forbidden
to eat the flesh of a particular animal. One clan may not eat the
tiger, another the ape, another the crocodile, another the dog,
another the cat, another the dove, another the white buffalo, and
another the locust.


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