Special Respect Paid to the Totem.
Next come instances of special respect paid to the totem. Some idea of the kind may be partly the origin of the worship of the cow and the serpent. Dr. Ball describes how some Khândhs refused to carry the skin of a leopard because it was their totem.21 The Kadanballis of Kanara will not eat the Sâmbhar stag, the Bargaballis the Barga deer, and the Kuntiballis the woodcock. The Vaydas of Cutch worship the monkey god whom they consider to be their ancestor, and to please him in their marriage ceremony, the bridegroom goes to the bride’s house dressed up as a monkey and there leaps about in monkey fashion.22 It is possibly from regard to the totem that the Parihâr Râjputs of Râjputâna will not eat the wild boar, but they have now invented a legend that one of their princes went into a river while pursuing a boar and was cured of a loathsome disease.23 There is a Celtic legend in which a child is turned into a pig, and Gessa is laid on Diarmid not to kill a pig, as it has the same span of life as himself.24
The Bengal Bâwariyas take the heron as their emblem, and must not eat it.25 The Orissa Kumhârs abstain from eating, and even worship the Sâl fish, because the rings on its scales resemble the wheel which is the symbol of their craft.26 The peacock is a totem of the Jâts and of the Khândhs, as the Yizidis worship the Tâous, a half mythical peacock, which has been connected with the Phœnix which Herodotus saw in Egypt.27 The Parhaiyas have a tradition that their tribe used to hold sheep and deer sacred, and used the dung of these animals instead of cowdung to plaster their floors. So the Kariyas do not eat the flesh of sheep, and may not even use a woollen rug. The same prohibition of meats appears to be a survival of totemism in Arabia.28