412 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



connected with, one of the exogamous classes, there was always in 

 the native mind a vague and undefinable, but quite definite, idea 

 that the totemic clans and the exogamous classes were not essenti- 

 ally the same. Marriage, for instance, between people of the same 

 totem, though not regarded with favour, was still permissible in 

 some places. This was the case at Dobu (Goulvain Island, S.E. 

 New Guinea), but on that same island marriage between a man and 

 a woman of the same class was absolutely prohibited. Any viola- 

 tion of that law would be unanimously condemned, and the parties 

 thereto would be severely punished. In New Britain, also, where 

 the class distinctions are very strong, the totems of the respective 

 classes are scarcely ever mentioned or considered. 



6. That whilst the progress of totemism from individual to 

 hereditary totemism was along a great trunk highway of natural 

 and orderly development, it did not always proceed at the same 

 rate, and that it was sometimes arrested altogether. There are 

 people, such as some of the Central Australian tribes, living in 

 isolated localities far away from the influences which affected the 

 main bodies of peoples, and among such tribes hereditary totemism 

 has not yet been fully developed, and it is probable that some of 

 their strange ideas about conception may be due, in some measure, 

 to this fact. If, for instance, no outstanding prominent men had 

 raised the influence of their totems so much that they became 

 hereditary, the number of individual totems would greatly increase, 

 and some means must be found to secure the continuance of the 

 most popular ones and also to enable those who desired any par- 

 ticular totem for their children to secure the accomplishment of 

 their wishes. The totem centres at which " only the spirits of 

 people of one particular totem are believed to congregate " and 

 where they are waiting to be born again would natui"ally fulfil all 

 these requirements. 



7. That I do not consider that the conceptional theory explains 

 the origin of totemism because it fails to account for precedent 

 beliefs. Dr. Frazer describes " absolutely primitive totemism " as 

 consisting of ' ' nothing more or less than in a behef that women are 

 impregnated without the help of men, by something which enters 

 their womb at the moment when they first feel it quickened ; for 

 such a belief would perfectly explain the essence of totemism— that 

 is, the identification of groups of people with groups of things." 

 This belief that women are impregnated without the help of men 

 may be a development of the totemic idea, but it is not, I think, 

 the origin of totemism. There must have been, for instance, among 

 primitive peoples the antecedent belief that it was possible for indi- 

 viduals or groups of people to be identified with groups of things. 

 There must have been also a belief in some supernatural power 

 which made that identification possible and which enabled the 

 " something " to enter the womb when a woman first found it 

 quickened. The conceptional theory, also, does not show, in my 



