[1227] This explains the error of which Strehlow accuses Spencer and Gillen: that they applied to one form of the ceremony the term which is more appropriate for the other. But in these conditions, the error hardly seems to have the gravity attributed to it by Strehlow.
[1228] It cannot be otherwise. In fact, as the initiation is a tribal feast, novices of different totems are initiated at the same time. So the ceremonies which thus succeed one another in the same place have to do with several totems, and, therefore, they must take place away from the places with which they are connected by the myth.
[1229] It will now be understood why we have never studied the initiation rites by themselves: it is because they are not a ritual entity, but are formed by the conglomeration of rites of different sorts. There are interdictions, ascetic rites and representative ceremonies which cannot be distinguished from those celebrated at the time of the Intichiuma. So we had to dismember this composite system and treat each of the different rites composing it separately, classifying them with the similar rites to which they are to be related. We have also seen (pp. 285 ff.) that the initiation has served as the point of departure for a new religion which tends to surpass totemism. But it has been sufficient for us to show that totemism contained the germs of this religion; we have had no need of following out its development. The object of this book is to study the elementary beliefs and practices; so we must stop at the moment when they give birth to more complex forms.
[1230] Nat. Tr., p. 463. If the individual may choose between the ceremonies of his paternal and maternal totems, it is because, owing to reasons which we have set forth above (p. 183), he participates in both.
[1231] See below, ch. v, p. 395.
[1232] See Essai sur le Sacrifice, in Mélanges d'histoire des Religions, p. 83.
[1233] Piacularia auspicia appellabant quæ sacrificantibus tristia portendebant (Paul ex Fest., p. 244, ed. Müller). The word piaculum is even used as a synonym of misfortune. "Vetonica herba," says Pliny, "tantum gloriæ habet ut domus in qua sita sit tuta existimetur a piaculis omnibus" (XXV, 8, 46).
[1234] Nor. Tr., p. 526; Eylmann, p. 239. Cf. above, p. 305.
[1235] Brough Smyth, I, p. 106; Dawson, p. 64; Eylmann, p. 239.
[1236] Dawson, p. 66; Eylmann, p. 241.