Hill-Tout, C: Totemism

Excerpt from Totemism: A Consideration of Its Origin and ImportAccording to the first, no man shall marry or cohabit with a woman of his own totem group; and under the second, members of a totem shall abstain from killing or eating the totem object. Up to the pub liration of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's important work on The Natives of Central Australia, these canons were regarded by Dr. Frazer as the vital elements of totemism, sine qua non. Since his acquaintance, however, with the data therein presented, he has been led to look with different eyes upon these canons, and now appears doubtful of their force and validity, and in their place seems desirous of establishing a new test, which may be termed the Canon of l'rovinder.As we shall presently have to refer to these doubtful canons in our consideration of Dr. Haddon's views, we need not stop to examine their validity here, but pass on to a consideration of the evidence upon which this later canon has been established.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.