Descent from the Totem.
We next come to Professor Robertson-Smith’s second test, the belief in descent from the totem. This branch of the subject has been very fully illustrated by Mr. Frazer.15 As in old times in Georgiana, according to Marco Polo, all the king’s sons were born with an eagle on the right shoulder marking their royal origin,16 so Chandragupta, king of Ujjain, was the son of a scorpion. “His mother accidentally imbibed the scorpion’s emission, by means of which she conceived.”17 The Jaitwas of Râjputâna trace their descent from the monkey god Hanumân, and confirm it by alleging that the spine of their princes is elongated like a tail. In the Râmâyana, one of the wives of King Sâgara gives birth to a son who continues the race; the other wife produces an Ikshvâku, a gourd or cane containing sixty thousand sons. The famous Chandragupta was miraculously preserved by the founder of his race, the bull Chando.18 The wolf is in the same way traditionally connected with the settlement of the Janwâr Râjputs in Oudh, and they believe that the animal never preys on their children. Every native believes that children are reared in the dens of wolves, and there is a certain amount of respectable evidence in support of the belief.19
Similar examples are numerous among the Drâvidian tribes. The Cheros of the Vindhyan plateau claim descent from the Nâga or dragon. The Râja and chief members of the Chota Nâgpur family wear turbans so arranged as to make the head-dress resemble a serpent coiled round the skull, with its head projecting over the wearer’s brow. The seal of the Mahârâja and the arms of his family show as a crest a cobra with a human face under its expanded hood, surrounded with all the insignia of royalty. The Santâl legend ascribes the origin of the tribe to the wild goose, and similar stories are told by the family of the Râja of Sinhbhûm, the Hos, the Malers, and the Kûrs.20