The Totems of Abydos

by John Norman

  “We have been sent here, and informed of as much, in so many words,” said Brenner, recalling the directress, “to confirm current political theories.”

  “And it appears we will do so, honestly,” said Rodriguez. “It does not even seem that we must keep two sets of notebooks, one to be reviewed by the directress and her superiors, in which the data is faked for publication, the other in which the truth is concealed, for those trusted to understand it.”

  “I am afraid here,” said Brenner.

  “Do not fear the Pons,” said Rodriguez. “They are simple, they are stupid. They do not even have names.”

  “There is much here that I do not understand,” said Brenner.

  “There is much here which I do not understand either,” said Rodriguez.

  “Where are the children?” asked Brenner. “Where are the other totems, the other clans?”

  “I do not know,” said Rodriguez.

  “How can these things live in the forests?” asked Brenner. “How is it that they can survive here?”

  “The totem protects them,” said Rodriguez.

  “Of course,” said Brenner.

  The git was looking up at Brenner, with its small, round, shiny eyes.

  “Perhaps the forests are not as dangerous as is alleged,” said Brenner.

  “Perhaps,” said Rodriguez.

  “I think the keeper wishes to feed the git,” said Brenner, looking to one side. The keeper of the git, in his smocklike robe, was now waiting, a few yards to the right. Under the scrutiny of Brenner and Rodriguez he turned about.

  “He is a polite fellow,” said Rodriguez.

  The Pons would seldom meet one’s eyes directly.

  In many cultures direct eye contact is regarded as a sign of openness, of honesty. In many others, of course, it is regarded as impolite, or obtrusive, and may even be interpreted as a sign of hostility.

  Brenner and Rodriguez then withdrew from the small, open-sided, roofed structure, returning to their hut.

  It was near noon.

  Chapter 18

  “Let us review,” said Rodriguez, looking up from the pages of a large, black notebook.

  “I have a headache,” said Brenner.

  “It is the bemat brew you were given last night,” said Rodriguez. This was a fermented beverage derived from the bemat grain, which was the common staple, fried, baked, or boiled, of the Pon diet.

  “I do not feel well,” said Brenner.

  “It was not a strong brew,” said Rodriguez.

  “You have no ill effects?”

  “No,” said Rodriguez.

  “I did not sleep well,” said Brenner.

  “I slept splendidly,” said Rodriguez.

  “I had an odd dream,” said Brenner.

  “What was it?” asked Rodriguez.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Brenner.

  “One of those dreams?” asked Rodriguez.

  “Perhaps,” said Brenner, angrily.

  “Was she pretty?” asked Rodriguez.

  “It was not what you think,” said Brenner.

  “You do not find the Pon females of interest?” said Rodriguez.

  “Certainly not!” said Brenner, angrily.

  “Good,” said Rodriguez.

  “They are like monkeys,” said Brenner, angrily.

  “Members of our species, sufficiently frustrated, have made do with worse,” said Rodriguez. “I remember once, when I was a lad, on Abdera.”

  “I do not care to hear it,” said Brenner.

  “Stay away from the Pon females,” said Rodriguez.

  “You need not fear,” said Brenner.

  “You are a young man,” said Rodriguez. “I should have realized how difficult this would be for you.”

  “I am all right,” said Brenner, angrily.

  “We should have brought a contract slut from Company Station along for you,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner thought immediately of the brunette.

  He would not have minded having her along, totally at his mercy, in the forests.

  “But I thought it would be too much extra bother,” said Rodriguez. “It is not as though they are slaves, who are no trouble, who are instantly obedient, who are desperate to please, knowing that the integrity of their pretty little hides, and, indeed, their very lives, depends on the perfection of their service.”

  “Slaves?” said Brenner.

  “They stay where you put them, they leap to obey, they plead to be assigned further tasks, that they may to some extent redeem their worthlessness, in being of service to the master.”

  “Contract women are not slaves,” said Brenner.

  “Certainly not,” said Rodriguez. “But, sooner or later, one supposes, on one world or another, they will learn slavery.”

  Brenner was silent. He supposed that that was true.

  “Perhaps we could have brought your little brunette along, handcuffed, on a leash.”

  “Please,” said Brenner.

  “If she dallied, or resisted, we could have stripped her, and lashed her. They step lively enough then.”

  “Please, Rodriguez,” said Brenner.

  “Like the slaves they are,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner was silent, angry.

  “You could have used her, to satisfy your needs. That is what they are good for.”

  “Rodriguez!” said Brenner.

  “But I thought it was too much bother,” said Rodriguez.

  “You wished to summarize certain matters?” asked Brenner.

  “What was your dream?” asked Rodriguez.

  “It does not matter,” said Brenner.

  “It concerned the Pon females,” said Rodriguez.

  “Yes!” said Brenner.

  “What was it?” asked Rodriguez.

  “I found myself on a low table, helpless,” said Brenner, angrily. “I could scarcely move. I was naked. I was strapped down. Pon females clustered about me, with bowls and vials. They addressed attentions to me, with their tiny hands, their lips and teeth, their mouths. I could not resist. It seemed I slept and awakened so, to the same attentions, several times during the night.”

  “Such things are a nuisance to clean up in the morning,” said Rodriguez.

  “I was not soiled,” said Brenner.

  “That is interesting,” said Rodriguez.

  “You were concerned to summarize certain matters?”

  “Review them,” said Rodriguez. “I am trying to bring together some of the things that we know, generally, about totemism.”

  Brenner nodded. Whereas he and Rodriguez had certainly gathered a great deal of data on the Pons it mostly concerned their behaviors, and not, so to speak, their motivations and intentions. They were more aware of what the Pons did, and how they did it, than why they did it, or, indeed, what it might all be about. Furthermore, there were many varieties of totemism, as an interpreted system. To be sure, they all involved the totem itself, with the reverence and attention accorded to it, and, oddly enough, exogamy, which, embarrassingly, from the scientific point of view, did not seem to fit into the picture at all. It was conjectured by many culture scientists to be an accidental, ultimately inexplicable accretion on totemism, and yet, of course, its universal appearance in the totemistic cultures, particularly as the totemistic institutions had apparently developed independently on diverse worlds, suggested a more intimate relationship. What Rodriguez was up to here was to review certain commonly found totemistic elements. Some of these might be pertinent to the Pons. Too, of course, the Pons might have elements in their system which were local to, or possibly even unique in, their own form of totemism.

  “The totem is the tribal ancestor of the clan,” said Rodriguez. “It is a sort of tutelary spirit, it acts as a guardian, a protector.”

  “That probably fits,” said Brenner. To be sure, these were almost universal traits of totemism.

  “In some cases it warns the clan of danger. It sends oracles to them. It can be used to pr
edict the future.”

  “I think you would need a priesthood, or medicine men, or shamans for that,” said Brenner.

  “The Pons are presumably too primitive for that?” said Rodriguez.

  “I would think so,” said Brenner. “Too, as far as I can tell, there seems to be little hierarchy, or differentiation, amongst Pons.”

  “True,” said Rodriguez.

  “Go on,” said Brenner.

  “We know the strength of the totem bond,” said Rodriguez.

  “That is clear,” said Brenner. “The Pons all claim descent from the totem.”

  “The totem may not be killed,” said Rodriguez. “Its flesh may not be eaten. No use may be made of it whatsoever.”

  “It is sacrosanct,” said Brenner.

  “In many cases it is forbidden to touch it,” said Rodriguez. “Indeed, in many cases, it is forbidden even to look upon it.”

  “That does not seem to fit,” said Brenner.

  “No,” said Rodriguez.

  “Too,” said Brenner, “in various cultures one does not even publicly identify the totem. One conceals the true totem. One does not even dare to refer to the totem by its real name.”

  “That does not fit,” said Rodriguez.

  “No,” said Brenner.

  “The totem group has totem dances, in which the movements and actions of the totem animal are imitated, and the dancers may even disguise themselves as the totem animal itself.”

  “We have seen no evidence of such dances, or feasts, or festivals,” said Brenner.

  “The totem is almost always an animal,” said Rodriguez, “but it may occasionally be a natural object, and, sometimes, though this is unusual, an artificial, or manufactured, object.”

  Brenner nodded. On some worlds a discarded watch, or clock, or radio, had been treated as a totem by primitives. But, presumably they had taken it as alive. Did its hands not move, or did it not speak? Later, when the hands were still or the device silent, they would wait patiently for it to move or speak again, sometimes for generations, that it had ever done so becoming a matter of faith. Too, of course, to a savage almost any manufactured object might appear exotic, mysterious, divine, miraculous. Who could understand a rubber ball, its regularity, its consistency, its liveliness, or a glass jar, in its transparency, like ice that did not melt? But most totems were animals. The git, of course, was an animal.

  “The animal is a much more likely totem,” said Rodriguez. “The primitive mind often regards animals, rather as children are wont to do, as fellow creatures, and equals.”

  “That is now common on several worlds,” Brenner reminded Rodriguez.

  “No, I mean really,” said Rodriguez. “I am not talking about moralistic cant, pretentious moral poses, prescribed hypocrisies, vacuous sentimentalities which are not taken seriously except by an occasional lunatic, and such, no, I mean really.”

  “Oh,” said Brenner.

  “That is quite different,” said Rodriguez.

  “True,” said Brenner.

  “The animal is alive, it is conscious, it is real, it seems much the same to the primitive as himself. He respects it. He talks to it. He worries about its feelings. He wonders what it is thinking. He begs its pardon if he must kill it.”

  “Interesting,” said Brenner. To be sure, from his point of view, there did not seem much difference between the Pons and the git. To be sure, the Pons did have a culture. They could speak, and such.

  “Thus it is a natural choice for the totem,” said Rodriguez.

  “Doubtless,” said Brenner.

  “The natural-object totem and the artificial-object totem, thus, would seem to presuppose the animal totem. Such totemisms would seem best understood as being derived from, or suggested by, a more primitive institution of totemism, namely, that of animal totemism.

  “Their rareness, too,” said Brenner, “would suggest that they are more recent developments.”

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez.

  “I think it is very likely,” said Brenner, “that with the Pons we are encountering a very early, an almost original, a very pure form of totemism.”

  “I would think so, “ said Rodriguez, “particularly considering their inferior mentality, their rudimentary cerebral development, their lack of a technology, their general primitiveness.”

  “Correct,” said Brenner. He was thinking about the brunette, and how beautiful she had been in her chains, on his bed, helpless, pleading with him, tears in her eyes, to be merciless with her, to complete her subjugation, without which she could not be herself.

  “The animal chosen is almost always a lively animal,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner nodded. Some typical totem animals, he knew, were birds, snakes, lizards and mice. The git, for example, was mouselike.

  “Why?” asked Rodriguez.

  “I don’t know,” said Brenner.

  “Because they are thought to be ensouled,” said Rodriguez.

  “There you touch on many common theories, of course,” said Brenner.

  “Specify,” said Rodriguez.

  “You know them better than I,” said Brenner.

  “Which do you have in mind?”

  “One theory thinks that the totem is a repository for the savage’s outward soul,” said Brenner, “that he hides it there, to keep it safe, that he himself may in effect become invulnerable. Another is that the spirits of the dead enter into the totem animals and live on in this fashion. Thus the animals may be reverenced, and thought of as ancestors, and such.”

  “Such theories seem to me unlikely,” said Rodriguez. “Surely the savage is familiar with his own vulnerability, or, if not his own, that of others. Surely he has seen tribal members die while the totem animal survives. Thus his soul is not in the totem animal, who keeps it safe for him. Similarly, if he thought it was his own soul which was in the totem animal, it seems unlikely that he would refer to the totem animal as “father” and “ancestor.” It also seems quite unlikely that the savage believes that the spirits of the dead enter into the totem animal. There is presumably one totem, so to speak, not many, not thousands, or hundreds of thousands, one for each departed soul. Too, individual totem animals can obviously die. If each contained a departed soul this might seem to suggest that that soul died, too, which consequence would presumably be regarded as at least unwelcome, if not actually unacceptable. To be sure, one can always save any hypothesis with enough ad-hoc qualifications. The soul might hurry to another totem animal, or something.”

  “That seems unlikely,” said Brenner. “They do speak, however, of the totem as “primal father,” as “ancestor,” and such.”

  “But that, too, upon reflection, is a clear mark against the multiple-souls theory,” said Rodriguez. “Not all departed souls would be those of males, let alone of fathers. Too, even of fathers, presumably there would be many fathers, not just one.”

  “True,” mused Brenner.

  “No,” said Rodriguez. “We may regard the totem animal as ensouled, so to speak, but it would have its own soul, so to speak, not someone else’s soul. It is its own thing.”

  “That seems to me most likely,” said Brenner. “What of the theory that the totem animal is a guardian spirit acquired by an ancestor, say, in a dream, and handed down to descendants?”

  “Such things are seldom bequeathed,” said Rodriguez. “They must be earned independently, often in fasting, prayer, and visions. The medicine animal of the father is seldom that of the son. Too, such things would presumably be handed down, if at all, through a given line of descent, not within an interrelated complexus of descent lines, such as those, say, of phratries and subphratries. Similarly the medicine animal is not regarded as an ancestor, or father. It is more in the nature of a tutelary ally.”

  “What is your theory?” asked Brenner.

  “That the totemistic peoples mean what they say,” said Rodriguez. “That they conceive the totem literally as the progenitor of their people, that they think of it, tru
ly, as the primal ancestor, as the father.”

  “Surely they understand procreation,” said Brenner.

  “What is clear to you may not be clear to someone else,” said Rodriguez, “and, if you were in their place, it might not be clear to you. Procreation is undoubtedly mysterious to many primitive groups, in particular, in societies practicing group marriage, and in societies where descent is traced matrilineally, and so on.”

  “It is easier to know the mother than the father,” smiled Brenner.

  “More importantly,” said Rodriguez, “it is easier to know that there is a mother than that there is a father.”

  “Interesting,” said Brenner.

  “Animals are presumably unclear about the nature of procreation,” said Rodriguez.

  “Surely,” said Brenner.

  “And often children,” said Rodriguez.

  “True,” said Brenner.

  “Consider the matter,” said Rodriguez. “Coition and birth are not resembling events. Too, they are separated in time, often by months. The discovery that they are related, as cause and effect, if you stop to think about it, is actually an intellectual achievement of the first magnitude. Indeed, it is not even possible, obviously, to trace descent patrilineally until this discovery has been made.”

  “The Pons trace descent matrilineally, supposedly,” said Brenner.

  “That is universal with totemistic groups,” said Rodriguez.

  “You think they do not understand procreation?” asked Brenner.

  “No,” said Rodriguez. “I think it is rather because of the great importance of the totem and the fact that it is easier, as you pointed out, to know the mother than the father. In such a group it is extremely important for the child to know his totem. You must understand that. Too, considering the exogamy regulations it is important that the group know his totem, as well. Without the totem an individual in a totemistic society is lost, so to speak, placeless, homeless, metaphysically orphaned, a creature who does not know himself, a refugee, a wanderer, a stranger, an outcast, something without identity or meaning, one who is without status, one who is, in effect, nothing. He will be scorned. He will be held in contempt. He may even be driven out. In totemistic cultures, thusly, it is natural for descent to be traced matrilineally, that it be to the totem of the mother, and not that of the father, who may not be known, that the child belongs.”