Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/420

 380 Totetnisni in the Evolution of Religion.

an unproved hypothesis and mere conjecture as the " totem- sacrament." To clinch the matter, M. Marillier also adds many ingenious (and a priori) arguments to show that certain alleged survivals cannot possibly be survivals of totemism, that totemism cannot pass into any other form of religion, and that the sacramental meal cannot be regarded as going back beyond the pastoral to the totemistic stage of social evolution. In fine, the totem-sacrament was a super- fluous and gratuitous supposition, and there were many other hypotheses by which its supposed effects could be explained or explained away.

Now, however, thanks to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, things are changed. It is no longer necessary to argue that totemism ■miist\\2L\^ been a stage in the evolution of religion, it is an established fact that it was. Arguments to show that the totem-sacrament cannot have existed, and that its existence is a superfluous hypothesis have themselves become gratuitous. Arguments to show that, if we confine ourselves to actual objective facts, we must say that the sacramental meal is only found in connection with pastoral cults, are now seen to prove only that the sacramental meal had not been found amongst totemists, not that it never existed amongst them.

With regard to alleged survivals of totemism, the question whether they are survivals will henceforward have to be argued on its merits. It can no longer be ruled out of court on the ground that the totem -sacrament is a mere piece of speculative theology. It is to this discussion, and to the light thrown on it by The Native Tribes of Central Australia, that I should like to make brief reference here, especially as it is bound up with the further important ques- tion whether it really is, as alleged by M. Marillier, impos- sible for totemism to pass into some other form of religion.

By a " survival " of totemism is meant that some rite, or institution, or other feature of totemism continues to exist amongst a people who have once been, but no longer are,