, in order to be equal
to his sacred office, must observe taboos without end. He must be
celibate. He must avoid all contact with the dead. He is limited to
certain kinds of food; which, moreover, must be prepared in a certain
way, and consumed in a certain place. His drink, again, is a special
milk, which must be poured out with prescribed formulas. He is
inaccessible to ordinary folk save on certain days and in certain ways,
their mode of approach, their salutations, his greeting in reply, being
all regulated with the utmost nicety. He can only wear a special garb.
He must never cut his hair. His nails must be suffered to grow long.
And so on and so forth. Such disabilities, indeed, are wont to
circumscribe the life of all sacred persons, and can be matched from
every part of the world. But they may fairly be cited here, as helping
to fill in the picture of what I have called the precautionary or
negative type of religious ritual.

Further, there is something rotten in the state of Toda religion. The
dairymen struck Dr. Rivers as very slovenly in the performance of their
duties, as well as vague and inaccurate in their accounts of what ought
to be done. Indeed, it was hard to find persons willing to undertake
the office. Ritual duties involving uncomfortable taboos were apt to
be thrust on youngsters. The youngsters, being youngsters, would
probably violate the taboos; but anyway that was their look-out. From
evasions to fictions is but a step. Hence when an unclean person
approached the dairyman, the latter would simply pretend not to see
him. Or the rule that he must not enter a hut, if women were within,
would be circumvented by simply removing from the dwelling the three
emblems of womanhood, the pounder, the sieve, and the sweeper;
whereupon his "face was saved." Now wherefore all this lack of
earnestness? Dr. Rivers thinks that too much ritual was the reason.
I agree; but would venture to add, "too much negative ritual." A
religion that is all dodging must produce a sneaking kind of
worshipper.

Now let us turn another type of primitive religion that is equally
identified with the food-quest, but allied to its positive and active
functions, which it seeks to help out. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have
given us a most minute account of certain ceremonies of the Arunta,
a people of central Australia. These ceremonies they have named
_Intichiuma_, and the name will probably stick, though there is reason
to believe