fe
of the grain or fruit, which injury would be caused by a consumption
of any part of it, at a time when the whole of the common life and
vigour was required for its reproduction and multiplication. This
idea may have operated to enable the savage to restrain himself from
digging up and eating the grain sown in the ground, or slaughtering his
domestic animals for food, and a taboo on the consumption of grain and
fruits during their period of ripening may have first begun in their
wild state. The Intichiuma ceremonies of the Australian natives are
carried out with the object of increasing the supply of the totem for
food purposes. In the Ilpirla or Manna totem the members of the clan go
to a large boulder surrounded by stones, which are held to represent
masses of Ilpirla or the manna of the _mulga_ tree. A Churinga stone
is dug up, which is supposed to represent another mass of manna, and
this is rubbed over the boulder, and the smaller stones are also rubbed
over it. While the leader does this, the others sing a song which is an
invitation to the dust produced by the rubbing of the stones to go out
and produce a plentiful supply of Ilpirla on the _mulga_ trees. [144]
Then the dust is swept off the surface of the stones with twigs of
the _mulga_ tree. Here apparently the large boulder and other stones
are held to be the centre or focus of the common life of the manna,
and from them the seed issues forth which will produce a crop of manna
on all the _mulga_ trees. The deduction seems clear that the trees are
not conceived of individually, but are held to have a common life. In
the case of the _hakea_ flower totem they go to a stone lying beneath
an old tree, and one of the members lets his blood flow on to the stone
until it is covered, while the others sing a song inciting the _hakea_
tree to flower much and to the blossoms to be full of honey. [145]
The blood is said to represent a drink prepared from the _hakea_
flowers, but probably it was originally meant to quicken the stone
with the blood of a member of the totem, that is its own blood or
life, in order that it might produce abundance of flowers. Here again
the stone seems to be the centre of the common life of the _hakea_
flower. The songs are sung with the idea that the repetition of words
connoting a state of facts will have the effect of causing that state
of facts to exist, in accordance with the belief already explained
in the concrete virtue of words.

Si