Beatty—The St. George j, or Mummers’, Plays. 293 
erabl© time. This is a very important matter, for the casual 
traveler has no authority to speak. We choose for special 
consideration the great works of Spencer and Gillen/ hooks 
which are acknowledged to he the best that have ever been 
published on a primitive or savage people. 1 2 
These people the authors describe as very primitive, having 
no notion of the causes of very simple matters. For this 
reason the book is valuable, as being the description of one of 
the most nearly primitive of all peoples. 
We shall first consider the first class of magic ceremonies, 
and then the second, or initiation, class. 
The first, class is very important among the Australians, 
because each totem group takes upon itself to procure for the 
tribe a plentiful supply of its totem, and to- this end they per¬ 
form ceremonies that are based on imitative magic. We shall 
summarize a part of Spencer and Gillen’s account, beginning 
with the Witchetty Grub ceremony. The witchetty grub is 
an important article of food among the Arunta tribes. The 
ceremony has constant reference to the myth of how the first 
witchetty grubs were produced in the Alcheringa, or myth 
ical period. With these explanations the account will be in¬ 
telligible. 
Eiach totem has its own ceremony, and no two of them are 
alike; but though they differ to a very great extent so far as 
the actual performance is concerned, the important point is 
that one and all have for their sole object the purpose of in¬ 
creasing the number of the' animal or plant after which the 
totem is called; and thus, taking the tribe as a whole, the ob¬ 
ject of these ceremonies is that of increasing the total food 
supply. 
Elvery local totemio group has its own Irdichiuma [sacred 
ceremony], and each one is held at a time decided upon by the 
Alatunja,? under whose direction it is carried out. When the 
1 “The Native Tribes of Central Australia,” 1899. “The Northern 
Tribes of Central Australia,” 1904. 
2 See the reviews of the first work by Gummere, “Modern Philology,” 
vol. 1; by J. G. Frazer, Fortnightly Review, vol. 71. 
s The head man of a local totemic group. 
