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+137+. All such economical ceremonies disappear with the progress of knowledge, though traces of them linger long in civilized communities. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen note the gradual disappearance of the economical and magical aspect of ceremonies in parts of Australia, and a similar process is to be observed elsewhere.
Even the lowest types of savages, such as the native tribes studied by Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. Gillen in Central Australia, have a complicated system of organization, the peculiar feature of which is totemism, or group marriage; but this is more the result of development than of conscious effort.
Thus the pre-historian should study Spencer and Gillen on the natives of Central Australia, if only that he may take firm hold of the fact that people with skulls inclining towards the Neanderthal type, and using stone knives, may nevertheless have very active minds; in short, that a rich enough life in its way may leave behind it a poor rubbish-heap.
"In the Urabunna tribe, for example," say Spencer and Gillen, "a group of men actually do have, continually and as a normal condition, marital relations with a group of women. This state of affairs has nothing whatever to do with polygamy any more than it has with polyandry. It is simply a question of a group of men and a group of women who may lawfully have what we call marital relations.
Spencer and Gillen, he cannot but know that churinga are not ornaments, are not all oval, but of many shapes and sizes, and that churinga larger than the 9 inch perforated stone from Dumbuck are perforated, and attached to strings. But what I must admire is the amazing luck or learning of Dr. Munro's supposed impostor.
Spencer and Gillen cannot find a trace of it in more than one of the central and northern tribes, which have male kinship, and a kind of local self-government. On the other hand, it does occur among southern tribes, like the Kurnai, which have advanced almost altogether out of totemism.
But Gregory of Nazianzen wished to found a Christian theatre; the Mediæval Mysteries were certainly under the protection of the clergy; and St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the schoolmen, only condemns the theatre with cautious qualifications. Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, Ch. Journal Anthropological Institute, July-Dec., 1904, p. 329.
Spencer and Gillen in their two works on Australian tribes, whose customs seem to them to be inexplicable except on the supposition of primitive promiscuity, in spite of Westermarck's arguments; and in support of this view the sexual license granted in many tribes to unmarried girls may be adduced. However this may be, the custom in question appears to be civil and not religious.
Thus, I have omitted to mention that sometimes the totems seem to have nothing to do at all with the social organization; as, for example, amongst the famous Arunta of central Australia, whom Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have so carefully described.
It is suggested by Spencer and Gillen that this variation from the usage of the Central region is to be attributed to the more regular rainfall on the coast, which insures a more regular supply of food and thus does away with the necessity for magic.
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