Such beliefs, accordingly, opened the way for ideal of what it should be [because it supposedly
was] to influence or help – determine what actually is. A man Galled
Dog–chases–iguana–up–a–tree–and–barks–at–him–all–night–long had that and other names
because he believed his ancestral alter ego had also had them; he was a member of the Sunlit
Cloud Iguana Clan because his ancestor was; he was associated with particular countries and
totems of this same ancestor; during an initiation he played the role of a dog and symbolically
attacked and killed certain members of other Clans because his ancestor [conveniently either
anthropomorphic or kynomorphic] really lid the same to the ancestral alter egos of these men;
and he would avoid his mother–in–law, joke with a mother’s distant brother, and make spears in
a certain way because his and other people’s ancestors did these things. His behavior in these
specific ways was outlined, and to that extent determined for him, by a set of ideal concerning
the past and the relation of the present to the past.