[465] Mrs. Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, p. 20.
[466] Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 151; Nat. Tr., p. 447; Strehlow, III, p. xii.
[467] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 449.
[468] However, there are certain tribes in Queensland where the things thus attributed to a social group are not forbidden for the members of the group: this is notably the case with the Wakelbura. It is to be remembered that in this society, it is the matrimonial classes that serve as the framework of the classification (see above, p. 144). Not only are the men of one class allowed to eat the animals attributed to this class, but they may eat no others. All other food is forbidden them (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 113; Curr, III, p. 27).
But we must not conclude from this that these animals are considered profane. In fact, it should be noticed that the individual not only has the privilege of eating them, but that he is compelled to do so, for he cannot nourish himself otherwise. Now the imperative nature of this rule is a sure sign that we are in the presence of things having a religious nature, only this has given rise to a positive obligation rather than the negative one known as an interdiction. Perhaps it is not quite impossible to see how this deviation came about. We have seen above (p. 140) that every individual is thought to have a sort of property-right over his totem and consequently over the things dependent upon it. Perhaps, under the influence of special circumstances, this aspect of the totemic relation was developed, and they naturally came to believe that only the members of the clan had the right of disposing of their totem and all that is connected with it, and that others, on the contrary, did not have the right of touching it. Under these circumstances, a tribe could nourish itself only on the food attributed to it.
[469] Mrs. Parker uses the expression "multiplex totems."
[470] As examples, see the Euahlayi tribe in Mrs. Parker's book (pp. 15 ff.) and the Wotjobaluk (Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 121 ff.; cf. the above-mentioned article of Mathews).
[471] See the examples in Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 122.
[472] See our De quelques formes primitives de classification, p. 28, n. 2.
[473] Strehlow, II, pp. 61-72.