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

132 Totemism, Sacrament and Sacrifice [ch.
habit of thought. That these survivals abound among primitive
red-skins and black-skins rather than among Semites and Aryans
need surprise no one.
Another totemistic relic remains to be considered ; it is again
enshrined with singular beauty in the Bacchae. Among totemistic
peoples it is frequently the custom to tattoo the member of the
totem-group with the figure of the sacred plant or animal. That
Fig. 23.
this custom was in use among the Thracian worshippers of
Dionysos we have clear evidence in Fig. 23. The design is from
a beautiful cylix with white ground in the National Museum at
Athens 1 . The scene is the slaying of Orpheus by a Maenad.
Only the Maenad is figured here. On her right arm is distinctly
tattooed a fawn, on her left some object not yet explained.
' doubtful or unconvinced. To a great extent it consists of myths, legends and
superstitions about plants and animals which, though they bear a certain resemblance
to totemism, may have originated quite independently of it.'
1 See my paper on Some Fragments of a Vase presumably by Euphronios,
in J.H.S. ix. 1888, p. 143.