Note 1199 — Chapter IV · THE POSITIVE CULT—continued III.—Representative or Commemorative Rites

Strehlow himself recognizes this: "The totemic ancestor and his descendant, who represents him (der Darsteller) are presented as one in these sacred hymns." (III, p. 6). As this incontestable fact contradicts the theory according to which ancestral souls do not reincarnate themselves, Strehlow adds, it is true, in a note, that "in the course of the ceremony there is no real incarnation of the ancestor in the person who represents him." If Strehlow wishes to say that the incarnation does not take place on the occasion of the ceremony, then nothing is more certain. But if he means that there is no incarnation at all, we do not understand how the officiant and the ancestor can be confounded.