[98] And from the Indian analogy it is therefore legitimate to presume that the totem-clan may have been the original unit of society among several European races as well as in America, Africa, Australia and India.

Similar exogamous clans exist in China, and many of them have the names of plants and animals.

[99] 52.

Animate Creation.
In order to render clear the manner in which the clan named after a totem animal (or, less frequently, a plant) came to hold its members akin both to each other and their totem animals, an attempt may be made to indicate, however briefly and imperfectly, some features of primitive man's conception of nature and life.

Apparently when they began dimly to observe and form conscious mental impressions of the world around them, our first ancestors made some cardinal, though natural and inevitable, mistakes.