50 Anmial Address. [Feb. 



sucrgested by t)ie Association " by placing photographers at the service 

 lo (he Census officers." Bnt an enormous number of admirable photo- 

 graplis of the various races of India are already in existence, and if we 

 did notliing more than select from among these typical pictures of the 

 characteristic people of each Province, and reproduce them by one of 

 the cheap modern processes we should preserve and place on record a 

 mass of very valualde material. The end in view would be to produce 

 a revised and expanded edition of a book famous in its day, Watson and 

 Kaye's People of India, the pictures in wliich have now faded almost 

 out, of recognition. To supplement- the report on the Census of each 

 Province and State by a volume of permanent prints illustrating the 

 people and tlieir pursuits, would be a worthy memorial of the Census of 

 1901. And it is an object in wliich I believe we could count on the 

 ent liusiastic co-operation of both professional and amateur photogra- 

 pher.s throughout India. The ideal to be worked up to would be the 

 splendid series of types of tlie Indian army taken at Captain Biuijley's 

 instance to illustrate the Caste Handbooks which I have already 

 mentioned. 



In conclusion I wish to say a few words about the striking explana- 

 tion of tlic origin of Totemism which lias been put forward by Mr. 

 J. G. Frazer in some recent numbers of the Forfnighthj Tieview. The 

 subject is one of special interest to us in India because the Indian 

 evidence on the subject seems not only to point to conclusions different 

 from those artived at by Mr. Fiazer on the basis of the Australian 

 data recently published by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen,' but to suggest 

 a new canon for determining the historical value of ethnographic 

 evidence in general. 



" A totem " says Mr. Frazer " is a class of natural phenomena or 

 material objects — most commonly a species of animals or plants — 

 between which and himself the savage believes that a certain intimate 

 relation exists. The exact nature of the relation is not easy to ascertain ; 

 various explanations of it have been suggested, but none has as yet 

 won general acceplance. Whatever it may be, it generally leads the 

 savao'C to abstain from killing oi* eating his totem, if his totem happens 

 to be a species of animals or plants. Further, the group of persons 

 who are knit to any particular totem by this mysteiious tie commonly 

 bear the name of the totem, believe themselves to be of one blood, and 

 strictly refuse to sanction the marriage or cohabitation of members of 



I The Native Tribes of Central Australia. By Bnldwin Spencer, M.A., some 

 time Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, Professor of Biology in the University of 

 Melbourne ; and J. F. Gillen, special Mfigistrate and Sub-Prot-ector of the Aborigines, 

 Alice Springe, South Australia, 



