But it was necessary to primitive man that the tie should take a concrete form and that he should actually assimilate the life of the sacred animal by eating its flesh, and this was accordingly done at a ceremonial sacrifice, which was held annually, and often in the spring, the season of the renewal and increase of life.

Since this renewal of the communal life was the concrete tie which bound the tribe together, any one who was absent from it could no longer be a member of the tribe.

The whole of this rite and the intense importance attached to it are inexplicable except on the supposition that the tie which had originally constituted the totem-clan was the eating of the totem-animal, and that this tie was perpetuated in the tribe by the communal eating of the domestic animal.

The communal sacrifice of the domestic animal was, as already seen, typical of society in the tribal or pastoral stage.

But one very important case, in addition to those given above and in the article on Kasai, remains for notice.