d by the ceremonial
eating. It is the particular totem group alone which is affected by
the ceremony; and the inference which it seems to me preferable to draw
is that the ceremonial eating of the first-fruits is, or rather has
been, in Australia what it is elsewhere, viz. an instance of prayer and
sacrifice in which the worshippers of a god are brought into
periodic--in this case annual--communion with their god. The
difference between the Australian case and others seems to be that in
the other cases the god who partakes of the first-fruits is the god of
the whole community, while in Australia he is the god of the particular
totem group and is analogous to the family gods who are worshipped
elsewhere, even where there is a tribal or national god to be
worshipped as well.

We are then inclined, for these and other reasons, to explain the
ceremonial eating of the totem plant or animal in Australia by the
analogy of the ceremonial eating of first-fruits elsewhere, and to
regard the ceremony as being in all cases an act of worship, {188} in
which at harvest time the worshippers of a god seek communion with him
by means of sacrifice and prayers of thanksgiving. But if we take this
view of the sacrifice and prayers offered at harvest time, we shall be
inclined to regard the rites which are performed at seed time, or the
period analogous to it, as being also possibly, in part, of a religious
character. In the case of agricultural peoples it is beyond doubt that
some of the ceremonies are religious in character: where the food plant
is itself regarded as a deity or the mode in which a deity is
manifested, not only may there be at harvest time a sacramental meal in
which, as amongst the Aztecs, the deity is formally "communicated" to
his worshippers, but at seed time sacrifice and prayer may be made to
the deity. Such a religious ceremony, whatever be the degree of
civilisation or semicivilisation which has been reached by those who
observe the ceremony, does not of course take the place of the
agricultural operations which are necessary if the fruits are to be
produced in due season. And the combination of the religious rites and
the agricultural operations does not convert the agricultural
operations into magical operations, or prove that the religious rites
are merely pieces of magic {189} intended to constrain the superior
power of the deity concerned. Indeed, if among the operations
performed at seed time we find