But certain beliefs, such as the universal existence of life, and of its distribution all over the body and transmission by contact and eating, the common life of the species, and possibly totemism itself, appear to have been pre-animistic or prior to any conception of or belief in a soul or spirit either in man himself or in nature.
59.

The tranmission of qualities.
Primitive man thought that the life and all qualities, mental and physical, were equally distributed over the body as part of the substance of the flesh.

He thus came to think that they could be transferred from one body or substance to another in two ways: either by contact of the two bodies or substances, or by the eating or assimilation of one by the other.

The transmission of qualities by contact could be indicated through simply saying the two names of the objects in contact together, and transmission by eating through saying the two names with a gesture of eating.

Thus if one ate a piece of tiger's flesh, one assimilated an equivalent amount of strength, ferocity, cruelty, yellowness, and any other qualities which might be attributed to the tiger.