is custom has been held
to have a sacramental significance; it has been suggested that the food
is sanctified by the touch of the elders and thus made lawful for the
tribe, or that, as naturally sacred, it secures, when eaten, union
between the eater and a superhuman Power. But there is no hint of such a
conception in the Australian ceremony or elsewhere. The procedure is
obligatory and solemn--to omit it would be, in the feeling of the
people, to imperil the life of the tribe; but all such usages are
sanctified by time. We should rather seek for the origin of the custom
in some simple early idea. It is not unusual, in parts of Australia and
in other lands, that a man, though he may not eat his totem, may kill it
for others; the eating in this case is the important thing--there is
magical power in it--and the economic obligation to provide food
overbears the sense of reverence for the totem. The only obscure point
in the ceremony under consideration is the obligation on the killer or
gatherer to taste the food before he gives it to his fellows. This may
be a survival of the rule, known to exist among some tribes, that in a
hunting party he who kills an animal has the first right to it. The
Australian hunter cannot eat his totem, but he may hold to his
traditional right; the result will be the custom as it now exists. With
our present knowledge no quite satisfactory explanation of the origin of
this particular rule can be given.

+129+. The employment of magical means for procuring food appears in the
performance of ceremonial dances, in the use of charms, the imitation of
animals, and other procedures. In California the supply of acorns and
animals is supposed to be increased by dances.[259] The New Guinea Koita
give their hunting dogs decoctions of sago and other food into which are
put pieces of odoriferous bark;[260] these charms are said to have been
got from the Papuans, the lowest race of the region. A Pawnee folk-story
(which doubtless reflects a current idea) tells how a boy by his songs
(that is, magic songs or charms) brought the buffalo within reach of
his people.[261] Among the Melanesians of New Guinea the hunting expert
plays a great role--his presence is necessary for the success of an
expedition.[262] He fixes the date of the hunt, prepares himself by a
series of abstinences,[263] and at the appointed time assembles the men,
recites spells addressed to ancestors, and passing along the lines of
the hunter