Note 1222 — Chapter IV · THE POSITIVE CULT—continued III.—Representative or Commemorative Rites

Thus the exogamic rules must be violated in the course of certain religious ceremonies (see above, p. 216, n. 1). A precise ritual meaning probably could not be found for these excesses. It is merely a mechanical consequence of the state of super-excitation provoked by the ceremony. It is an example of rites having no definite object themselves, but which are mere discharges of energy (see above, p. 381). The native does not assign them a definite end either; he merely says that if these licences are not committed, the rite will not produce its effects; the ceremony will fail.