Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/810

 796 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

there are taboos resting on all the members of a savage com- munity, the effect of which is to provide a closed season for the animals and plants thus banned. Such communal prohibitions are usually removed by solemn ceremonies of first-fruits. The ethnographical evidence for these taboos is extensive and some of it may be set forth in detail.

Among the Central Australians studied by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen the Intichiuma ceremonies hold a most important place. These are performances by men of the different totemic clans for the purpose of magically increasing the food supply. Each totemic unit, a kangaroo group or a witchetty grub group, is believed to have immediate control over the numbers of the animal or plant the name of which it bears. Each group, there- fore, as established by this primitive division of labor, is bound to contribute to the general stock of food by working magic for the propagation of its totem. After the magical performances called Intichiuma are over the witchetty grub or the kangaroo is tabooed to the members of the totem concerned. On no account may it be eaten until it is abundant and fully grown. Any infringement of this rule is thought to nullify the result of the magic and so to reduce the available supply of food. When the plant or animal becomes plentiful the taboo is lifted by the local headman: the members of the totem group may now eat sparingly of their totem, while the members of other totems may eat it without restriction,^

Outside of Australia we meet similar taboos which secure a much-needed closed season for plant and animal life. In the Mekeo District of British New Guinea there is a special officer whose function it is to place an afu or taboo on areca nuts and cocoanuts when the supply on the trees is running short. The prohibition has been known to endure as long as thirty-two weeks.^ Throughout the New Hebrides group "the cocoanuts are laid under a tapu till all the other crops are planted, or till some feast is celebrated; and death is the penalty of eating the

1897), pp. 202 flf.
 * Spencer and Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London,

•A. C. Haddon, Head-Hunters (London, 1901), pp. 270 ff.