Goat and Totemism.
We perhaps get a glimpse of totemism in connection with the goat in some of the early Hindu legends. When Parusha, the primeval man, was divided into his male and female parts, he produced all the animals, and the goat was first formed out of his mouth. There is, again, a mystical connection between Agni, the fire god, Brâhmans, and goats, as between Indra, the Kshatriyas, and sheep, Vaisyas and kine, Sûdras and the horse. These may possibly have been tribal totems of the races by whom these animals were venerated.72 The sheep, as we have already seen, is a totem of the Keriyas. The Aheriyas, a vagrant tribe of the North-Western Provinces, worship Mekhasura or Meshasura in the form of a ram.