UP TO THE PRESENT, we have studied totemism only as a
public institution: the only totems of which we have spoken
are common to a clan, a phratry or, in a sense, to a tribe; ¹ an
individual has a part in them only as a member of a group.
But we know that there is no religion which does not have an
individual aspect. This general observation is applicable to
totemism. In addition to the impersonal and collective totems
which hold the first place, there are others which are peculiar
to each individual, which express his personality, and whose
cult he celebrates in private.

In certain Australian tribes, and in the majority of the In-
dian tribes of North America, ² each individual personally sus-
tains relations with some determined object, which are com-
parable to those which each clan sustains with its totem. This
is sometimes an inanimate being or an artificial object; but it
is generally an animal. In certain cases, a special part of the

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