The Arunta eating of the totem has nothing to do with consecrating the first-fruits of grubs or kangaroos to a god or with absorbing the qualities of a spirit. When Swedish peasants bake a cake shaped like a girl, from the last sheaf of the new corn, they perhaps originally ate the cake 'as the body of the corn spirit.'[11] But when the Lithuanian farmer takes the first swig of the new beer--'the second brew was for the servants'--perhaps he is only declaring his ownership, and opening the beer season.[12] In an unnamed part of Yorkshire the parson cuts the first corn; he is the _Alatunja_, and opens the harvest. In the Celebes the priest opens the rice harvest; all eat of it; 'after this every one is free to get in his rice.' At St. Andrews on the Medal Day (which is in harvest time) the Alatunja (that is the new captain) drives a ball from the first tee; after this every one is free to drive off in his turn--but not before. In some places, as in Indo-China, the first-fruits are offered to a god; in Zululand the king pops a little into the mouth of every man present, who 'may immediately get in his crops.' If he began harvest before he would die, or, if detected, would be speared, or forfeited. Sometimes the first-fruits are offered to 'the holy spirit of fire.' There are all sorts of ways and ceremonies of opening the season and taking off the taboo. I really don't think it follows that the first fruits are dangerous to eat, before the ceremony, _because_ 'they are regarded as instinct with a divine virtue, and consequently the eating of them is a sacrament or communion.[13] I It is dangerous to eat them, as it would be dangerous to steal a tabooed umbrella. They are tabooed because it is close-time. The other ideas may come to be entertained, an automatic punishment may be thought to follow the breach of the taboo, though we do not learn that this is the case among the Arunta. But the origin of the taboo on the immature food, I think, is the perfectly practical idea of a close-time; plants are not to be gathered, nor animals killed, prematurely. The more or less supreme being of the Fuegians is angry--if you shoot flappers. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come rain, come wind, blow, very much blow.'[14] The 'great black man, who cannot be escaped, and who influences the weather according to men's conduct,' is right about the flappers. He sanctions a necessary game law. The _How_ (king), in Tonga, used to wait till the yams were ripe, then he fixed a day for gathering them, and had a religious function. The sort of function depends on the stage at which local religion has arrived; but a close-time--no premature killing or gathering--is the practical idea at the base of all these affairs of first-fruits. Any other superstition, sacrificial or sacramental, may crystallise round the practical primitive prohibition, especially when it was sanctioned by the good old device of automatic punishment, following on infringement of taboo.