The deduction seems clear that the trees are not conceived of individually, but are held to have a common life.

In the case of the _hakea_ flower totem they go to a stone lying beneath an old tree, and one of the members lets his blood flow on to the stone until it is covered, while the others sing a song inciting the _hakea_ tree to flower much and to the blossoms to be full of honey.

[145] The blood is said to represent a drink prepared from the _hakea_ flowers, but probably it was originally meant to quicken the stone with the blood of a member of the totem, that is its own blood or life, in order that it might produce abundance of flowers.

Here again the stone seems to be the centre of the common life of the _hakea_ flower.

The songs are sung with the idea that the repetition of words connoting a state of facts will have the effect of causing that state of facts to exist, in accordance with the belief already explained in the concrete virtue of words.
Sir E.B.Tylor states: "In Polynesia, if a village god were accustomed to appear as an owl, and one of his votaries found a dead owl by the roadside, he would mourn over the sacred bird and bury it with much ceremony, but the god himself would not be thought to be dead, for he remains incarnate in all existing owls.