TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 747 



Motu immigrants have to buy fine weatlier for their trading voyages from the 

 sorcerers of the indigenous agricultural Koitapu.' 



The remarkable researches of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in Central Australia 

 prove that it is the function of the kinsmen of a particular totem to perform "what 

 are known as intichiuma ceremonies, the object of which is to cause the abundance 

 of the species of animal or plant which is the totem of that kin. The descriptions 

 of these ceremonies are well known to students." I have adduced further evidence 

 of a like nature,^ and from what Mr. Roscoe has found in Uganda we may expect 

 other examples from Africa. 



It may be that in some, possibly in all, of the instances of sympathetic and 

 symbolic magic there is a belief that wind or sun, animal or plant, or whatever 

 the objects may be, are animated by spirits akin to those ot humankind ; but even so, 

 as Dr. Frazer ' points out, the action of the magician is a direct one : it does not 

 imply the assistance of other powers who can control the body or spirit of those 

 objects. The data from Australia and Torres Straits point to the conclusion that 

 there is a magical aspect of totemism, which is of great economic importance, and 

 there is no evidence that the officiators at these ceremonies acknowledge the 

 assistance of spiritual powers resident either within the objects themselves or in 

 the form of independent, more or less supreme beings. The existing data do not 

 deny their existence, they simply ignore them in the ceremonies, and so far they 

 are practicaUy non-existent. 



According to the suggestion I have ventured to make, the primitive totemic 

 groups ate their associated animals or plants ; indeed these were their chief 

 articles of diet. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen point out ^ that while amongst most 

 Australian tribes a man may not eat his totem, amongst the Arunta and other 

 tribes in the centre of the continent there is no restriction according to which a 

 man is altogether forbidden to eat his totem. On the other hand, though he may, 

 only under ordinary circumstances, eat very sparingly of it, there are certain special 

 occasions on which he is obliged by custom to eat a small portion of it, or otherwise 

 the supply would fail. The Arunta are a peculiar people, while they may be primi- 

 tive in some respects ; in others they are not so, as also has been pointed out by 

 Durkheim." According to the strict definition of the term, they are not even a 

 totemic people. Judging from the evidence of the legends of the Alcheringa time 

 and the traces of group marriage and mother right, Mr. Hartland" is of opinion 

 that the present disregard by the Arunta of the totem in marriage is a stage in the 

 sloughing of totemism altogether, whereas the engivura, or final initiation cere- 

 monies, indicate that 'the organisation is undergoing a slow transformation into 

 something more like the so-called secret societies of the British Columbian 

 tribes.' 



The eating of what are evidently the totem animals by the Arunta may possibly 

 te a persistence from an earlier phase, but, without doubt, the totem taboo is 

 charactei'istic of totemism in full sway.* We have evidence to show that under 

 certain conditions the totem taboo may break down, but this is a later transfor- 

 mation, and indicates a breaking up of the rigid observance of totemism. 



Mr. Lang " has made a simple suggestion to account for the origin of the 

 totem taboo. He says : ' These men therefore would work the magic for propa- 

 gating their kindred in the animal and vegetable world. But the existence of 



' J. Chalmers, Pioneering in New Gidnea, 1887, p. 14. 



2 Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, 

 1899 ; ef. also J. G. Frazer, Fortnightly Review, 1899, pp. 648, 835. 



^ Folk-lore, xii. 1901, p. 230, and Report Camh. Anthrop. Ex2}edition to Torres 

 Straits, vol. v. (in the press). 



■■ Loc. cit., 1899, p. 657. » ^or. cit., pp. 73, 167. 



* L' Annie Sociologique, v. 1902. ' Folk-lore, xi. 1900, pp. 73-75. 



" I am fully aware that this appears to cut the ground from under my suggestion ; 

 but the latter deals with incipient totemism, and I do not see why the totem taboo 

 should not have arisen from several causes. 

 " " Magic and Religion, 1901, pp. 264, 265. 



