Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/2

 which is strictly correct from the standpoint of the terminology of consciousness, yet in a certain measure, in some psychic or organic strata of our individuality, correspond to something that actually exists, we shall be tempted to regard this belief as the expression in the language of unconscious symbolism of the unity which connects human life with Nature. There can be no doubt about the existence of a biological connexion between man and his environment and it is the endopsychical knowledge of such a connexion that is projected by primitive man into the belief in a "magical" bond between a clan and a natural species. In animal life the adaptation of a species to environment is represented by the organic variations in which certain animals actually adopt the colour and outward aspect of others. Correspending to this we have the belief of savages in their power of transformation in ritual. For instance we have the totemic ceremony of the witchetty grub totem in the Arunta tribe. The performer represented a witchetty grub: he quivered his extended arm in imitation of the movements of the insect's wings. In the "intichiuma" of the emu totem the performers imitate the aimless gazing about of that bird, each man holding a bunch of twigs in his hands, the churinga on the head with its tuft of feathers being intended to represent the long neck and small head of the bird. The kangaroo ceremony of the Bathurst Islanders is started by one or two men jumping into the ring with their legs slightly bent at the knee. Their arms are held forward, bent vertically and at right angles at the elbow with their hands prone and partly closed. The whole posture is that of the hopping marsupial of Australia. In intichiuma ceremonies the actors are supposed not merely to imitate but to be actually transformed into the semi-animal, semi-human totemic ancestor whose life is enacted by them and it is