Note 25 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
On this point of the blood tabu see Dr. Durkheim, L'Année Sociologique, i. pp. 47-57. Also M. Reinach, L'Anthropologie, vol. x. p. 65. The point was laid before me long ago by Mr. Arthur Platt, when he was editing the papers of Mr. J. F. McLennan. Dr. Durkheim charges me (Folk Lore, December 1903) with treating these tabus "vaguely" in Social Origins. I merely referred the reader more than once, as in Social Origins, p. 57, Note I, to Dr. Durkheim's own exposition, also to M. Reinach, L'Anthropologie, x. p. 65. The theory of the sacredness of the blood is not absolutely necessary. The totem tabu often excludes all contact with the totem by the totemist.