It seems strange, of course, that men should eat their totems; and it must not by any means be supposed that this practice is (or was) universal; but it undoubtedly obtains in some cases. As Miss Harrison says (Themis, p. 123); "you do not as a rule eat your relations," and as a rule the eating of a totem is tabu and forbidden, but (Miss Harrison continues) "at certain times and under certain restrictions a man not only may, but MUST, eat of his totem, though only sparingly, as of a thing sacrosanct." The ceremonial carried out in a communal way by the tribe not only identifies the tribe with the totem (animal), but is held, according to early magical ideas, and when the animal is desired for food, to favor its manipulation. The human tribe partakes of the mana or life-force of the animal, and is strengthened; the animal tribe is sympathetically renewed by the ceremonial and multiplies exceedingly. The slaughter of the sacred animal and (often) the simultaneous outpouring of human blood seals the compact and confirms the magic. This is well illustrated by a ceremony of the 'Emu' tribe referred to by Dr. Frazer:-- "In order to multiply Emus which are an important article of food, the men of the Emu totem in the Arunta tribe proceed as follows: They clear a small spot of level ground, and opening veins in their arms they let the blood stream out until the surface of the ground for a space of about three square yards is soaked with it. When the blood has dried and caked, it forms a hard and fairly impermeable surface, on which they paint the sacred design of the emu totem, especially the parts of the bird which they like best to eat, namely, the fat and the eggs. Round this painting the men sit and sing. Afterwards performers wearing long head-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the emu, mimic the appearance of the bird as it stands aimlessly peering about in all directions." (1) (1) The Golden Bough i, 85--with reference to Spencer and Gillen's Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 179, 189. Thus blood sacrifice comes in; and--(whether this has ever actually happened in the case of the Central Australians I know not)--we can easily imagine a member of the Emu tribe, and disguised as an actual emu, having been ceremonially slaughtered as a firstfruits and promise of the expected and prayed-for emu-crop; just as the same certainly HAS happened in the case of men wearing beast-masks of Bulls or Rams or Bears being sacrificed in propitiation of Bull-gods, Ram-gods or Bear-gods or simply in pursuance of some kind of magic to favor the multiplication of these food-animals.