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acquiring the clan or gentile group patrons or tutelaries is still an unsolved problem, although several plausible theories have been advanced by astute students to explain the probable mode of obtaining them. With respect to the personal tutelary and the fetish, the data are sufficiently clear and full to permit a satisfactory description and definition of these two classes of tutelary and auxiliary beings. From the available data bearing on this subject, it would seem that much confusion regarding the use and acquirement of personal and communal tutelaries or patron beings has arisen by regarding certain social, political, and religious activities as due primarily to the influence of these guardian deities, when in fact those features were factors in the social organization on which has been later imposed the cult of the patron or guardian spirit. Exogamy, names and class names, and various taboos exist where “totems” and “totemism”, the cults of the guardian spirits, do not exist.
    ‘Some profess to regard the clan or gentile group patron or tutelary as a mere development of the personal guardian, but from the available but insufficient data bearing on the question it appears to be, in some of its aspects, more closely connected in origin, or rather in the method of its acquisition, with the fetish, the Iroquois
otchina’ ken’da
, “an effective agency of sorcery”, than with any form of the personal tutelary. This patron spirit of course concerns the group regarded as a body, for with regard to each person of the group, the clan or gentile guardian is inherited, or rather acquired by birth, and it may not be changed at will. On the other hand, the personal tutelary is obtained through the rite of vision in a dream or a trance, and it must be preserved at all hazards as one of the most precious possessions. The fetish is acquired by personal choice, by purchase, or by inheritance, or from some chance circumstance or emergency, and it can be sold or discarded at the will of the possessor in most cases; the exception is where a person has entered into a compact with some evil spirit or being that, in consideration of human or other sacrifices in its honour at stated periods, the said spirit undertakes to perform certain obligations to this man or woman, and in default of which the person forfeits his right to live.
    ‘“Totemism” is a purely philosophical term which modern anthropological literature has burdened with a great mass of needless controversial speculation and opinion. The doctrine and use of tutelary or patron guardian spirits by individuals and by organized bodies of persons are defined by Powell as “a method of naming”, and as “the doctrine and system of naming”. But the motive underlying the acquisition and use of guardian or tutelary spirits, whether by an individual or by an organized body of persons, is always the same – namely, to obtain welfare and to avoid ill-fare. So it appears to be erroneous to define this cult as “the doctrine and system of naming”. It is rather the recognition, exploitation, and adjustment of the imaginary mystic relation of the individual or of the body of organized persons to the postulated
orendas
,mystic powers, surrounding each of these units of native society. With but few exceptions, the recognized relation between the clan or
gens
and its patron deity is not one of descent or source, but rather that of protection, guardianship, and support. The relationship as to source between these two classes of superior beings is not yet determined; so to avoid confusion in concepts, it is better to use distinctive names for them, until their connection, if any, has been definitely ascertained: this question must not be prejudged. The hypothetic inclusion of these several classes in a general one, branded with the rubric “totem” or its equivalent, has led to needless confusion. The native tongues have separate names for these objects, and until the