Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

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124 Totemism, Sacrament and Sacrifice [ch.
may, but must, eat of his totem, though only sparingly 1
, as of a
ithing sacro-sanct. This eating of the totem is closely connected
with its ceremonial multiplication. You abstain from your totem
as a rule because of its sanctity, i.e. because it is a great focus of
mana ; you eat a little with infinite precautions because you want
that mana and seek its multiplication. This double-edged atti-
tude towards things sacred lies, as we shall later see, at the very
foundation of the ideas both of sacrament and sacrifice.
The totem-animal is in general the guardian and protector of
its human counterpart, but the relation is strictly mutual ; the
animal depends on the man as the man on the animal. This
comes out very clearly in the Intichiuma ceremonies performed
by the Central Australian tribes 2 . By Intichiuma are meant
magical ceremonies performed by members of a totem-group to
induce the multiplication of the totem. As a typical instance we
may take the ceremonies of the Emu totem.
When men of the Emu totem desire to multiply emus they set about it
as follows. Several of the men open veins in their arms and allow the blood
to stream on the ground till a patch about three yards square is saturated
with it. When the blood is dry it forms a hard surface on which the men of
the totem paint in white, red, yellow and black a design intended to represent
various parts of the emu, .such as the fat, of which the natives are very fond,
the eggs in various stages of development, the intestines, and the feathers.
Further, several men of the totem, acting the part of ancestors of the Emu
clan, dress themselves up to resemble emus and imitate the movements and
aimless gazing about of the bird ; on their heads are fastened sacred sticks
{churinga) about four feet long, and tipped with emu feathers, to represent
the long neck and small head of the emu 3 .
The ceremony has really, like all Intichiuma ceremonies, two
main elements : (1) the shedding of the blood of the human Emu,
and (2) his counterfeit presentment of the bird-Emu. The human
blood helps out the animal life, renews, invigorates it ; the man,
by dressing up as the Emu and making pictures of it, increases
his mystic sympathy and communion. In the ceremony for pro-
moting the Witch etty Grub a long narrow structure of boughs is
got ready. It represents the chrysalis from which the full-grown
insect emerges. Into this structure the men of the Witchetty
Grub totem, painted over with the device of the totem in red
ochre and pipe clay, each in turn enter and sing of the grub in its
1 Frazer, op. cit. iv. p. 6.
- Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, chapter vi., Intichiuma
ceremonies.
3 Frazer, op. cit. i. p. 106.