748 REPORT— 1902. 



this connection would also suggest that, in common propriety, a man should not 

 kill and eat bis animal or vegetable relations. In most parts of the world he 

 abstains from this uncousinly behaviour ; among the Arunta he may eat sparingly 

 ■of his totem, and must do so at the end of the close-time or beginning of the 

 season. He thus, as a near relation of the actual kangaroo or grubs, declares the 

 reason is open, now his neighbours may begin to eat grubs or kangaroos; the 

 taboo is ofi.' i)r. Frazer puts forth two suggestions : ' the one is that as animals 

 ■do not eat their own kind, so man thought it inconsistent to eat his totem kin ; 

 the other is a hypothetical idea of conciliation. 



I have barely touched upon the relation of social organisation, with its marriage 

 taboo, to totemism. It is by no means certain that the social regulations and 

 •customs, which are so much in evidence in a fully developed totemic society, were 

 primitively connected with totemism. So far as the Arunta are concerned, Messrs. 

 Spencer and Gillen believe" the ' totemism appears to be a primary, and exogamy 

 a secondary, feature . . . and that exogamic groups were deliberately introduced 

 €0 as to regulate marital relations.' But is this primitive ? 



If one admits that mankind was originally distributed in small groups, which 

 must have consisted of near kin, it does not seem difficult to imagine that mar- 

 riage would more likely take place between members of contiguous groups rather 

 than within the groups themselves. The attraction for novelty must always have 

 operated, and in the struggle for existence there was always one advantage to be 

 gained by alliances between neighbouring group.?, not only from a commissariat 

 point of view, but for offensive and defensive purposes. There is, of course, the 

 ■converse of this, as wife-stealing would lead to feuds; perhaps daughter-abduction 

 was more frequent, and this probablj- was not regarded as an otlence so serious 

 that a mild scrimmage would not set matters right. It would not take long for 

 wont to crystallise into rigid custom, and custom is always supported hy public 

 opinion. 



Social regulations must be later than social conditions, and I suspect that the 

 -privileges and taboos which run through the social aspect of totemism first arose 

 when totemic groups were in process of aggregation into more complex com- 

 munities, and afterwards gradually became fixed into a system. 



Hero-cults. 



The facts to which I have hitherto directed your attention fall well within 

 the sphere of totemism, but I wish now to indicate two interesting departures 

 from typical totemism, both of which occur among the Western tribe of 

 Torres Straits. 



I have alluded to the dual grouping of the totem kins at Mabujag, and an ana- 

 logous arrangement occurred in the other islands ; I propose to speak of each group 

 of kins as a phratry. Strictly speaking, a phratry is a group of exogamous kins 

 within a community ; that is, no member of a group of kins (or phratry) could 

 marry another person belonging to the same phratry. The evidence that this is or 

 was the case in the Western tribe of Torres Straits ia strong, but it is not abso- 

 lutely proven. 



In Yam, as in the other islands, there is at least one lacod, or tahoo ground, 

 where sacred ceremonies were held. In the principal Jacod in Yam there was 

 formerly a low ience surrounding a .«pace about thirty-five feet square in which 

 were the shrines of the two great totems of the island. All that now remains is 

 several heaps of great Fusus ."-hells. 



Two of the heaps are about twenty-five feet in length. Formerly at the 

 southerly end of each long row of shells was a large turtle-shell (tortoise-shell) 

 mask representing respectively a crocodile and a hammei-headed shark. The.se 

 were decorated in various waj s, and under each was a stone in which the life of 

 the totem resided ; stretching from the front end of each mask was a cord to 

 which numerous human lower jaw-bones were fastened, and its other end was 



' Fortnightly Beviciv, 1899, pp. 838-40. 



- Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xxviii. 1899, pp. 277, 278. 



