[180] This work had been prepared for and preceded by two others by the same author: _The League of the Iroquois_ (1851), and _Systems of Consanguinity_ and _Affinity of the Human Family_ (1871).
[182] In the very first volumes of the _Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_ are found the study of Powell, _Wyandot Government_ (I, p. 59), that of Cushing, _Zuñi Fetiches_ (II, p. 9), Smith, _Myths of the Iroquois_ (_ibid._, p. 77), and the important work of Dorsey, _Omaha Sociology_ (III, p. 211), which are also contributions to the study of totemism.
[183] This first appeared, in an abridged form, in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (9th ed.).
[184] In his _Primitive Culture_, Tylor had already attempted an explanation of totemism, to which we shall return presently, but which we shall not give here; for by making totemism only a particular case of the ancestor-cult, he completely misunderstood its importance. In this chapter we mention only those theories which have contributed to the progress of the study of totemism.
[185] Published at Cambridge, 1885.
[186] First edition, 1889. This is the arrangement of a course given at the University of Aberdeen in 1888. Cf. the article _Sacrifice_ in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (9th edition).
[187] London, 1890. A second edition in three volumes has since appeared (1900) and a third in five volumes is already in course of publication.
[188] In this connection must be mentioned the interesting work of Sidney Hartland, _The Legend of Perseus_, 3 vols., 1894-1896.
[189] We here confine ourselves to giving the names of the authors; their works will be indicated below, when we make use of them.
[190] If Spencer and Gillen have been the first to study these tribes in a scientific and thorough manner, they were not the first to talk about them. Howitt had already described the social organization of the Wuaramongo (Warramunga of Spencer and Gillen) in 1888 in his _Further Notes on the Australian Classes_ in _The Journal of the Anthropological Institute_ (hereafter, _J.A.I._), pp. 44 f. The Arunta had already been briefly studied by Schulze (_The Aborigines of the Upper and Middle Finke River_, in _Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia_, Vol. XIV, fasc. 2): the organization of the Chingalee (the Tjingilli of Spencer and Gillen), the Wombya, etc., by Mathews (_Wombya Organization of the Australian Aborigines_, in _American Anthropologist_, New Series, Vol. II, p. 494; _Divisions of some West Australian Tribes_, _ibid._, p. 185; _Proceedings Amer. Philos. Soc._, XXXVII, pp. 151-152, and _Journal Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXII, p. 71 and XXXIII, p. 111). The first results of the study made of the Arunta had also been published already in the _Report on the Work of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia_, Pt. IV (1896). The first part of this _Report_ is by Stirling, the second by Gillen; the entire publication was placed under the direction of Baldwin Spencer.
[193] We write the Arunta, the Anula, the Tjingilli, etc., without adding the characteristic _s_ of the plural. It does not seem very logical to add to these words, which are not European, a grammatical sign which would have no meaning except in our languages. Exceptions to this rule will be made when the name of the tribe has obviously been Europeanized (the Hurons for example).
[194] Strehlow has been in Australia since 1892; at first he lived among the Dieri, and from them he went to the Arunta.
[195] _Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral Australien._ Four fascicules have been published up to the present. The last appeared at the moment when the present book was finished, so it could not be used. The two first have to do with the myths and legends, and the third with the cult. It is only just to add to the name of Strehlow that of von Leonhardi, who has had a great deal to do with this publication. Not only has he charged himself with editing the manuscripts of Strehlow, but by his judicious questions he has led the latter to be more precise on more than one point. It would be useful also to consult an article which von Leonhardi gave the _Globus_, where numerous extracts from his correspondence with Strehlow will be found (_Ueber einige religiöse und totemistische Vorstellungen der Aranda und Loritja in Zentral Australien_, in _Globus_, XCI, p. 285). Cf. an article on the same subject by N. W. Thomas in Folk-lore, XVI, pp. 428 ff.
[196] Spencer and Gillen are not ignorant of it, but they are far from possessing it as thoroughly as Strehlow.
[197] Notably by Klaatsch, _Schlussbericht über meine Reise nach Australien_, in _Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie_, 1907, pp. 635 ff.
[198] The book of K. Langloh Parker, _The Euahlayi Tribe_, that of Eylmann, _Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien_; that of John Mathews, _Two Representative Tribes of Queensland_, and certain recent articles of Mathews all show the influence of Spencer and Gillen.
[199] A list of these publications will be found in the preface to his _Nat. Tr._, pp. 8-9.
[200] London, 1904. Hereafter we shall cite this work by the abbreviation _Nat. Tr._, but always mentioning the name of Howitt, to distinguish it from the first work of Spencer and Gillen, which we abbreviate in the same manner.
[201] _Totemism and Exogamy_, 4 vols., London, 1910. The work begins with a re-edition of _Totemism_, reproduced without any essential changes.
[202] It is true that at the end and at the beginning there are some general theories on totemism, which will be described and discussed below. But these theories are relatively independent of the collection of facts which accompanies them, for they had already been published in different articles in reviews, long before this work appeared. These articles are reproduced in the first volume (pp. 89-172).
[206] It should be noted that in this connection, the more recent work, _Totemism and Exogamy_, shows an important progress in the thought as well as the method of Frazer. Every time that he describes the religious or domestic institutions of a tribe, he sets himself to determine the geographic and social conditions in which this tribe is placed. Howsoever summary these analyses may be, they bear witness nevertheless to a rupture with the old methods of the anthropological school.
[207] Undoubtedly we also consider that the principal object of the science of religions is to find out what the religious nature of man really consists in. However, as we do not regard it as a part of his constitutional make-up, but rather as the product of social causes, we consider it impossible to find it, if we leave aside his social environment.
[208] We cannot repeat too frequently that the importance which we attach to totemism is absolutely independent of whether it was ever universal or not.
[209] This is the case with the phratries and matrimonial classes; on this point, see Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, ch. iii; Howitt, _Native Tribes_, pp. 109 and 137-142; Thomas, _Kinship and Marriage in Australia_, ch. vi and vii.
[211] It is to be understood that this is not always the case. It frequently happens, as we have already said, that the simpler forms aid to a better understanding of the more complex. On this point, there is no rule of method which is applicable to every possible case.
[212] Thus the individual totemism of America will aid us in understanding the function and importance of that in Australia. As the latter is very rudimentary, it would probably have passed unobserved.
[213] Besides, there is not one unique type of totemism in America, but several different species which must be distinguished.
[214] We shall leave this field only very exceptionally, and when a particularly instructive comparison seems to us to impose itself.
[215] This is the definition given by Cicero: _Gentiles sunt qui inter se eodem nomine sunt_ (_Top._ 6). (Those are of the same gens who have the same name among themselves.)
[216] It may be said in a general way that the clan is a family group, where kinship results solely from a common name; it is in this sense that the _gens_ is a clan. But the totemic clan is a particular sort of the class thus constituted.
[217] In a certain sense, these bonds of solidarity extend even beyond the frontiers of the tribe. When individuals of different tribes have the same totem, they have peculiar duties towards each other. This fact is expressly stated for certain tribes of North America (see Frazer, _Totemism and Exogamy_, III, pp. 57, 81, 299, 356-357). The texts relative to Australia are less explicit. However, it is probable that the prohibition of marriage between members of a single totem is international.
[219] In Australia the words employed differ with the tribes. In the regions observed by Grey, they said _Kobong_; the Dieri say _Murdu_ (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 91); the Narrinyeri, _Ngaitye_ (Talpin, _in_ Curr, II, p. 244); the Warramunga, _Mungái_ or _Mungáii_ (_Nor. Tr._, p. 754), etc.
[220] _Indian Tribes of the United States_, IV, p. 86.
[221] This fortune of the word is the more regrettable since we do not even know exactly how it is written. Some write _totam_, others _toodaim_, or _dodaim_, or _ododam_ (see Frazer, _Totemism_, p. 1). Nor is the meaning of the word determined exactly. According to the report of the first observer of the Ojibway, J. Long, the word _totam_ designated the protecting genius, the individual totem, of which we shall speak below (Bk. II, ch. iv) and not the totem of the clan. But the accounts of other explorers say exactly the contrary (on this point, see Frazer, _Totemism and Exogamy_, III, pp. 49-52).
[223] The same.
[226] The _Buandik_ and the _Kaiabara_ (p. 116). It is to be remarked that all the examples come from only five tribes.
[227] Thus, out of 204 kinds of totems, collected by Spencer and Gillen out of a large number of tribes, 188 are animals or plants. The inanimate objects are the boomerang, cold weather, darkness, fire, lightning, the moon, red ochre, resin, salt water, the evening star, a stone, the sun, water, the whirlwind, the wind and hail-stones (Nor. Tr., p. 773. Cf. Frazer, _Totemism and Exogamy_, I, pp. 253-254).
[228] Frazer (_Totemism_, pp. 10 and 13) cites a rather large number of cases and puts them in a special group which he calls _split-totems_, but these are taken from tribes where totemism is greatly altered, such as in Samoa or the tribes of Bengal.
[230] See the tables collected by Strehlow, _op. cit._, II, pp. 61-72 (cf. III, pp. xiii-xvii). It is remarkable that these fragmentary totems are taken exclusively from animal totems.
[231] Strehlow, II, pp. 52 and 72.
[232] For example, one of these totems is a cave where an ancestor of the Wild Cat totem rested; another is a subterranean gallery which an ancestor of the Mouse clan dug, etc. (_ibid._, p. 72).
[233] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 561 ff. Strehlow, II, p. 71, note 2. Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 426 ff.; _On Australian Medicine Men_, _J.A.I._, XVI, p. 53; _Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems_, _J.A.I._, XVIII, pp. 63 ff.
[234] Thaballa means "laughing boy," according to the translation of Spencer and Gillen. The members of the clan which bear this name think they hear him laughing in the rocks which are his residence (_Nor. Tr._, pp. 207, 215, 226 note). According to a myth given on p. 422, there was an initial group of mythical Thaballa (cf. p. 208). The clan of the Kati, "full-grown men," as Spencer and Gillen say, seems to be of the same sort (_Nor. Tr._, p. 207).
[236] Strehlow, II, pp. 71 f. He mentions a totem of the Loritja and Arunta which is very close to the serpent Wollunqua: it is the totem of a mythical water-snake.
[237] This is the case with Klaatsch, in the article already cited (see above, p. 92, n. 3).
[238] As we indicated in the preceding chapter, totemism is at the same time of interest for the question of religion and that of the family, for the clan is a family. In the lower societies, these two problems are very closely connected. But both are so complex that it is indispensable to treat them separately. Also, the primitive family organization cannot be understood before the primitive religious beliefs are known; for the latter serve as the basis of the former. This is why it is necessary to study totemism as a religion before studying the totemic clan as a family group.
[240] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 163, 169, 170, 172. It is to be noted that in all these tribes, except the Mara and the Anula, the transmission of the totem in the paternal line is only a general rule, which has exceptions.
[241] According to Spencer and Gillen (Nat. Tr., pp. 123 ff.), the soul of the ancestor becomes reincarnate in the body of the mother and becomes the soul of the child; according to Strehlow (II, pp. 51 ff.), the conception, though being the work of the ancestor, does not imply any reincarnation; but in neither interpretation does the totem of the child necessarily depend upon that of the parents.
[243] It is in large part the locality where the mother believes that she conceived which determines the totem of the child. Each totem, as we shall see, has its centre and the ancestors preferably frequent the places serving as centres for their respective totems. The totem of the child is therefore that which belongs to the place where the mother believes that she conceived. As this should generally be in the vicinity of the place which serves as totemic centre for her husband, the child should generally follow the totem of his father. It is undoubtedly this which explains why the greater part of the inhabitants of a given locality belong to the same totem (_Nat. Tr._, p. 9).
[244] _The Secret of the Totem_, pp. 159 ff. Cf. Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 40 f.; John Mathews, _Eaglehawk and Crow_; Thomas, _Kinship and Marriage in Australia_, pp. 52 ff.
[248] Howitt, pp. 98 ff.
[252] Still other reasons could be given in support of this hypothesis, but it would be necessary to bring in considerations relative to the organization of the family, and we wish to keep these two studies separate. Also this question is only of secondary interest to our subject.
[253] For example, Mukwara, which is the name of a phratry among the Barkinji, the Paruinji and the Milpulko, designates the eagle-hawk, according to Brough Smyth; now one of the clans of this phratry has the eagle-hawk as totem. But here the animal is designated by the word Bilyara. Many cases of the same thing are cited by Lang, _op. cit._, p. 162.
[254] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 115. According to Howitt (_op. cit._, pp. 121 and 454), among the Wotjobaluk, the clan of the pelican is found in the two phratries equally. This fact seems doubtful to us. It is very possible that the two clans may have two varieties of pelicans as totems. Information given by Mathews on the same tribe seems to point to this (_Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria_, in _Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales_, 1904, pp. 287 f.).
[255] In connection with this question, see our memoir on _Le Totémisme_, in the _Année Sociologique_, Vol. V, pp. 82 ff.
[256] On the question of Australian matrimonial classes in general, see our memoir on _La Prohibition de l'inceste_, in the _Année Soc._, I, pp. 9 ff., and especially for the tribes with eight classes, _L'Organisation matrimoniale des societés Australiennes_, in _Année Soc._, VIII, pp. 118-147.
[257] This principle is not maintained everywhere with an equal strictness. In the central tribes of eight classes notably, beside the class with which marriage is regularly permitted, there is another with which a sort of secondary concubinage is allowed (Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, p. 106). It is the same with certain tribes of four classes. Each class has a choice between the two classes of the other phratry. This is the case with the Kabi (see Mathews, _in_ Curr, III, 162).
[258] See Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines_, pp. 56 ff.; Palmer, _Notes on some Australian Tribes_, _J.A.I._, XIII (1884), pp. 302 ff.
[259] Nevertheless, some tribes are cited where the matrimonial classes bear the names of animals or plants: this is the case with the Kabi (Mathew, _Two Representative Tribes_, p. 150), the tribes observed by Mrs. Bates (_The Marriage Laws and Customs of the West Australian Aborigines_, in _Victorian Geographical Journal_, XXIII-XXIV, p. 47), and perhaps in two tribes observed by Palmer. But these facts are very rare and their significance badly established. Also, it is not surprising that the classes, as well as the sexual groups, should sometimes adopt the names of animals. This exceptional extension of the totemic denominations in no way modifies our conception of totemism.
[260] Perhaps the same explanation is applicable to certain other tribes of the South-East and the East where, if we are to believe the informers of Howitt, totems specially attached to each matrimonial class are to be found. This is the case among the Wiradjuri, the Wakelbura and the Bunta-Murra on the Bulloo River (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 210, 221, 226). However, the evidence collected is suspect, according to his own admission. In fact, it appears from the lists which he has drawn up, that many totems are found equally in the two classes of the same phratry.
The explanation which we propose, after Frazer (_Totemism and Exogamy_, pp. 531 ff.), raises one difficulty. In principle, each clan and consequently each totem, is represented equally in the two classes of a single phratry, since one of the classes is that of the children and the other that of the parents from whom the former get their totems. So when the clans disappeared, the totemic interdictions which survived should have remained in both matrimonial classes, while in the actual cases cited, each class has its own. Whence comes this differentiation? The example of the Kaiabara (a tribe of southern Queensland) allows us to see how it may have come about. In this tribe, the children have the totem of their mother, but it is particularized by some distinctive mark. If the mother has the black eagle-hawk as totem, the child has the white eagle-hawk (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 229). This appears to be the beginning of a tendency for the totems to differentiate themselves according to the matrimonial classes.
[261] A tribe of only a few hundred members frequently has fifty or sixty clans, or even many more. On this point, see Durkheim and Mauss, _De quelques formes primitives de classification_, in the _Année Sociologique_, Vol. VI, p. 28, n. 1.
[262] Except among the Pueblo Indians of the South-West, where they are more numerous. See Hodge, _Pueblo Indian Clans_, in _American Anthropologist_, 1st series, Vol. IX, pp. 345 ff. It may always be asked whether the groups which have these totems are clans or sub-clans.
[263] See the tables arranged by Morgan, _Ancient Society_, pp. 153-185.
[264] Krause, _Die Tlinkit-Indianer_, p. 112; Swanton, _Social Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians_, in _XXVIth Rep._, p. 308.
[265] Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida_, p. 62.
[266] "The distinction between the two clans is absolute in every respect," says Swanton, p. 68; he gives the name clan to what we call phratries. The two phratries, he says elsewhere, are like two foreign nations in their relations to each other.
[267] Among the Haida at least, the totem of the real clans is altered more than that of the phratries. In fact, usage permits a clan to sell or give away the right of bearing its totem, as a result of which each clan has a number of totems, some of which it has in common with other clans (see Swanton, pp. 107 and 268). Since Swanton calls the phratries clans, he is obliged to give the name of _family_ to the real clans, and of _household_ to the regular families. But the real sense of his terminology is not to be doubted.
[270] _Indian Tribes_, I, p. 420; cf. I, p. 52. This etymology is very doubtful. Cf. _Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico_ (_Smithsonian Inst. Bur. of Ethnol._, Pt. II, _s.v._, Totem, p. 787).
[273] Charlevoix, _Histoire et description de la Nouvelle France_, V, p. 329.
[275] Erminnie A. Smith, _Myths of the Iroquois_, in _Sec. Rep. of the Bur. of Ethnol._, p. 78.
[281] See a photograph of a Haida village in Swanton, _op. cit._, Pl. IX. Cf. Tylor, _Totem Post of the Haida Village of Masset_, _J.A.I._, New Series I, p. 133.
[282] Hill Tout, _Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh of British Columbia_, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 155.
[283] Krause, _op. cit._, p. 230; Swanton, _Haida_, pp. 129, 135 ff.; Schoolcraft, _op. cit._, I, pp. 52-53, 337, 356. In the latter case the totem is represented upside down, in sign of mourning. Similar usages are found among the Creek (C. Swan, _in_ Schoolcraft, V, p. 265) and the Delaware (Heckewelder, _An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania_, pp. 246-247).
[287] Brough Smyth, I, p. 284. Strehlow cites a fact of the same sort among the Arunta (III, p. 68).
[288] _An Account of the English Colony in N.S. Wales_, II, p. 381.
[290] Swanton, _Social Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians, in XXVIth Rep._, pp. 435 ff.; Boas, _The Social Organization and Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians_, p. 358.
[292] Bourke, _The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona_, p. 229; J. W. Fewkes, _The Group of Tusayan Ceremonials called Katcinas_, in _XVth Rep._, 1897, pp. 151-263.
[298] The meaning of these relations will be seen below (Bk. II, ch. iv).
[301] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 66 n. It is true that other informers contest this fact.
[303] Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida_, pp. 41 ff., Pl. XX and XXI; Boas, _The Social Organization of the Kwakiutl_, p. 318; Swanton, _Tlingit_, Pl. XVI ff.--In one place, outside the two ethnographic regions which we are specially studying, these tattooings are put on the animals which belong to the clan. The Bechuana of South Africa are divided into a certain number of clans; there are the people of the crocodile, the buffalo, the monkey, etc. Now the crocodile people, for example, make an incision in the ears of their cattle whose form is like the jaws of this animal (Casalis, _Les Basoutos_, p. 221). According to Robertson Smith, the same custom existed among the ancient Arabs (_Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, pp. 212-214).
[304] However, according to Spencer and Gillen, there are some which have no religious sense (see _Nat. Tr._, pp. 41 f.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 45, 54-56).
[305] Among the Arunta, this rule has exceptions which will be explained below.
[306] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 162; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 179, 259, 292, 295 f.; Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 221. The thing thus represented is not always the totem itself, but one of those things which, being associated to this totem, are regarded as being in the same family of things.
[307] This is the case, for example, among the Warramunga, the Walpari, the Wulmala, the Tjingilli, the Umbaia and the Unmatjera (_Nor. Tr._, 339, 348). Among the Warramunga, at the moment when the design is executed, the performers address the initiated with the following words: "That mark belongs to your place; do not look out along another place." "This means," say Spencer and Gillen, "that the young man must not interfere with ceremonies belonging to other totems than his own: it also indicates the very close association which is supposed to exist between a man and his totem and any spot especially connected with the totem" (_Nor. Tr._, p. 584 and n.). Among the Warramunga, the totem is transmitted from father to child, so each locality has its own.
[309] It will be remembered (see above, p. 107) that in this tribe, the child may have a different totem than his father, his mother, or his relatives in general. Now the relatives on both sides are the performers designated for the ceremonies of initiation. Consequently, since in principle a man can have the quality of performer or officiant only for the ceremonies of his own totem, it follows that in certain cases the rites by which the young man is initiated must be in connection with a totem that is not his own. That is why the paintings made on the body of the novice do not necessarily represent his own totem: cases of this sort will be found in Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 229. That there is an anomaly here is well shown by the fact that the circumcision falls to the totem which predominates in the local group of the initiate, that is to say, to the one which would be the totem of the initiate himself, if the totemic organization were not disturbed, if among the Arunta it were what it is among the Warramunga (see Spencer and Gillen, _ibid._, p. 219).
The same disturbance has had another consequence. In a general way, its effect is to extend a little the bonds attaching each totem to a special group, since each totem may have members in all the local groups possible, and even in the two phratries. The idea that these ceremonies of a totem might be celebrated by an individual of another totem--an idea which is contrary to the very principles of totemism, as we shall see better after a while--has thus been accepted without too much resistance. It has been admitted that a man to whom a spirit revealed the formula for a ceremony had the right of presiding over it, even when he was not of the totem in question himself (_Nat. Tr._, p. 519). But that this is an exception to the rule and the product of a sort of toleration is proved by the fact that the beneficiary of the formula does not have the free disposition of it; if he transmits it--and these transmissions are frequent--it can be only to a member of the totem which the rite concerns (_Nat. Tr._, _ibid._).
[310] _Nat. Tr._, p. 140. In this case, the novice keeps the decoration with which he has thus been adorned until it disappears of itself by the effect of time.
[311] Boas, _General Report on the Indians of British Columbia in British Association for the Advancement of Science, Fifth Rep. of the Committee on the N.W. Tribes of the Dominion of Canada_, p. 41.
[312] There are also some among the Warramunga, but in smaller numbers than among the Arunta; they do not figure in the totemic ceremonies, though they do have a place in the myths (_Nor. Tr._, p. 163).
[313] Other names are used by other tribes. We give a generic sense to the Arunta term because it is in this tribe that the churinga have the most important place and have been studied the best.
[315] There are a few which have no apparent design (see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 144).
[317] Strehlow, who writes _tjurunga_, gives a slightly different translation to the word. "This word," he says, "means that which is secret and personal _(der eigene geheime_). _Tju_ is an old word which means hidden or secret, and _runga_ means that which is my own." But Kempe, who has more authority than Strehlow in this matter, translates _tju_ by great, powerful, sacred (_Kempe, Vocabulary of the Tribes inhabiting Macdonell Ranges_, s.v. _Tju_, in _Transactions of the R. Society of Victoria_, Vol. XIII). At bottom, the translation of Strehlow is not so different from the other as might appear at first glance, for what is secret is hidden from the knowledge of the profane, that is, it is sacred. As for the meaning given to _runga_, it appears to us very doubtful. The ceremonies of the emu belong to all the members of that clan; all may participate in them; therefore they are not personal to any one of them.
[318] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 130-132; Strehlow, II, p. 78. A woman who has seen a churinga or a man who has shown one to her are both put to death.
[319] Strehlow calls this place, defined in exactly the same terms as by Spencer and Gillen, _arknanaua_ instead of _ertnatulunga_ (Strehlow, II, p. 78).
[322] Strehlow, II, p. 78. However, Strehlow says that if a murderer takes refuge near an ertnatulunga, he is unpityingly pursued there and put to death. We find some difficulty in conciliating this fact with the privilege enjoyed by animals, and ask ourselves if the rigour with which a criminal is treated is not something recent and should not be attributed to a weakening of the taboo which originally protected the ertnatulunga.
[324] _Ibid._, pp. 545 f. Strehlow, II, p. 79. For example, the dust detached by rubbing a churinga with a stone, when dissolved in water, forms a potion which restores health to sick persons.
[326] For example, the churinga of the yam totem, if placed in the soil, make the yams grow (_Nor. Tr.,_ p. 275). It has the same power over animals (Strehlow, II, pp. 76, 78; III, pp. 3, 7).
[332] One group borrows the churinga of another with the idea that these latter will communicate some of the virtues which are in them and that their presence will quicken the vitality of the individuals and of the group (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 158 ff.).
[334] Each individual is united by a particular bond to a special churinga which assures him his life, and also to those which he has received as a heritage from his parents.
[335] _Nat. Tr._, p. 154; _Nor. Tr._, p. 193. The churinga are so thoroughly collective that they take the place of the "message-sticks" with which the messengers of other tribes are provided, when they are sent to summon foreign groups to a ceremony (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 141 f.).
[336] _Ibid._, p. 326. It should be remarked that the bull-roarers are used in the same way (Mathews, _Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria_, in _Jour. of Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, pp. 307 f.).
[339] Strehlow, I, _Vorwort. in fine_; II, pp. 76, 77 and 82. For the Arunta, it is the body of the ancestor itself; for the Loritja, it is only an image.
[340] When a child has just been born, the mother shows the father the spot where she believes that the soul of the ancestor entered her. The father, accompanied by a few relatives, goes to this spot and looks for the churinga which the ancestor is believed to have left at the moment that he reincarnated himself. If it is found there, some old man of the group undoubtedly put it there (this is the hypothesis of Spencer and Gillen). If they do not find it, a new churinga is made in a determined manner (_Nat. Tr._, p. 132. Cf. Strehlow, II, p. 80).
[341] This is the case among the Warramunga, the Urabunna, the Worgaia, the Umbaia, the Tjingilli and the Guangi (_Nor. Tr._, pp. 258, 275 f.). Then, say Spencer and Gillen, "_they were regarded as of especial value because of their association with a totem_" (_ibid._, p. 276). There are examples of the same fact among the Arunta (_Nat. Tr._, 156).
[343] The Kaitish, the Ilpirra, the Unmatjera; but it is rare among the latter.
[344] The pole is sometimes replaced by very long churinga, placed end to end.