| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: 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
 Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: told to children. Scores of us come here among the woods and dance
for nights together, and are none the worse."
This put Jack in a thousand new thoughts. He was a grave lad; he
had no mind to dance himself; he wore his fetter manfully, and
tended his ulcer without complaint. But he loved the less to be
deceived or to see others cheated. He began to lie in wait for
heathen travellers, at covert parts of the road, and in the dusk of
the day, so that he might speak with them unseen; and these were
greatly taken with their wayside questioner, and told him things of
weight. The wearing of gyves (they said) was no command of
Jupiter's. It was the contrivance of a white-faced thing, a
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