The character of these vegetation festivals is always very much the same. They include dances, in which, in essential distinction from those of the initiation ceremonies, women are generally allowed to participate; their central feature consists of specific magical acts designed to effect an increase of the food supply. In Australia, these acts, in part, take the form of ceremonies in which pieces of artificial animals are strewn about. We speak of them as artificial, of course, only from our own standpoint; to the Australian the material that is scattered represents an actual living being. Thus, for example, a heap of sand is moulded into the form of a large lizard, and, of this, various parts are thrown into the air by those who participate in the festival. The animal germs thus scattered are supposed to effect an increase in the animals of the lizard totem. These vegetation festivals, therefore, are also totem festivals, and their celebration has the secondary significance of a cult dedicated to the totem. The celebration connected with a fish totem is similar to the above, though somewhat more complicated. A member of the clan, whose arms or other parts of the body have been bored through with bone daggers, descends into the water and allows his blood to mingle with it. The totem germs that are to bring about an increase in fish are supposed to emanate from the blood. In the case of plant totems, the cults are of a simpler nature. The plants themselves, or sometimes their seeds, which, moreover, also serve directly as food, are strewn to the winds. The grass-seed totem, for example, is particularly common in Australia. The seeds of the Australian grasses are gathered in large quantities and constitute an important part of the vegetable food. Thrown into the air, they are supposed to bring about an increased supply of these grasses. Externally regarded, this magical ceremony, primitive as it is, completely represents an act of sowing. It would be incorrect, however, as yet to speak of it as such, in the sense of the later tiller of the soil; the significance of the ceremony is purely magical. An age which merely gathers wild seeds and fruits does not prepare the soil in the way that sowing presupposes. Nevertheless, the magical cult involves an act which later forms an important part of agricultural tasks. Indeed, it is not at all improbable that these magical ceremonies, which in any event already involve the recognition that the strewing of seed conditions the increase of plants, have elsewhere constituted a preparatory step to the development of agriculture. In general it may be said that the ceremony probably originated in connection with plant totems, where the idea of such an increase is very especially apt to suggest itself; doubtless it was only later connected, through a process of external association, with animal totems. In harmony with such a view is the fact that Intichiuma festivals are chiefly prevalent