the food of {186} man are, until they become fit for eating, regarded as sacred or taboo, and therefore may not be eaten. That suggestion derives some support from the fact that in Australia anything that is eaten may be a totem and being a totem is taboo. But if it is thus sacred, then in order to be eaten it must be "desacralised," the taboo must be taken off. And it is suggested that that precisely is what is effected by the ceremonial eating of the totem by the headman of the totem clan: the totem is desacralised by the mere fact that it is formally and ceremonially eaten by the headman, after which it may be consumed by others as an ordinary article of food. But this explanation of the first-fruits ceremony is based upon an assumption which is contrary to the facts of the case as it occurs in Australia. It assumes that the plant or the animal until desacralised is taboo to all members of the tribe, and that none of them can eat it until it has been desacralised by the ceremonial eating. But the assumption is false; the plant or animal is sacred and taboo only to members of the clan whose totem it is. It is not sacred to the vast majority of the tribe, for they have totems of their own; to them it is not sacred or taboo, they may kill it--and they do--without breaking any taboo. The ceremonial {187} eating of the first-fruits raises no taboo as far as the tribe generally is concerned, for the plant or animal is not taboo to them. As far as the tribe generally is concerned, no process of desacralisation takes place and none is effected 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.