More recently, a German missionary, Carl Strehlow, who has also passed long years in these same Central Australian societies,[194] has commenced to publish his own observations on two of these tribes, the Aranda and the Loritja (the Arunta and Luritcha of Spencer and Gillen).[195] Having well mastered the language spoken by these peoples,[196] Strehlow has been able to bring us a large number of totemic myths and religious songs, which are given us, for the most part, in the original text. In spite of some differences of detail which are easily explained and whose importance has been greatly exaggerated,[197] we shall see that the observations of Strehlow, though completing, making more precise and sometimes even rectifying those of Spencer and Gillen, confirm them in all that is essential.
These discoveries have given rise to an abundant literature to which we shall have occasion to return. The works of Spencer and Gillen especially have exercised a considerable influence, not only because they were the oldest, but also because the facts were there presented in a systematic form, which was of a nature to give a direction to later studies,[198] and to stimulate speculation. Their results were commented upon, discussed and interpreted in all possible manners. At this same time, Howitt, whose fragmentary studies were scattered in a number of different publications,[199] undertook to do for the southern tribes what Spencer and Gillen had done for those of the centre. In his _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_,[200] he gives us a view of the social organization of the peoples who occupy Southern Australia, New South Wales, and a good part of Queensland. The progress thus realized suggested to Frazer the idea of completing his Totemism by a sort of compendium[201] where would be brought together all the important documents which are concerned either with the totemic religion or the family and matrimonial organization which, rightly or wrongly, is believed to be connected with this religion. The purpose of this book is not to give us a general and systematic view of totemism, but rather to put the materials necessary for a construction of this sort at the disposition of scholars.[202] The facts are here arranged in a strictly ethnographical and geographical order: each continent, and within the continent, each tribe or ethnic group is studied separately. Though so extended a study, where so many diverse peoples are successively passed in review, could hardly be equally thorough in all its parts, still it is a useful hand-book to consult, and one which can aid greatly in facilitating researches.