Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

v] Survivals of Totemistic Thinking in Greece 129
The people of the island of Seriphos would not for the most
part use lobsters for food, accounting them sacred. ^Elian 1 was
told that if they found one dead they would bury it and lament
for it. If they took one alive in their nets they cast it back into
the sea. The dead totem is often mourned for as a clansman.
In Samoa, if an Owl man finds a dead owl, he will sit down by
it and weep over it and beat his forehead with stones till the
blood flows 2 . In
Phrygia there was a clan called the Snake-born
(0ioyevei