The Native Tribes of Central Australia

Descent is counted through the mother, both as regards class and totem, so that we can represent marriage and descent as counted in the Urabunna tribe by the following [P.61] diagram, in which the letter f indicates the female and the letter m the male.

There are still further restrictions to marriage than those which merely enact that a dingo man must marry a water-hen woman, and it is here that we are brought into contact with the terms of relationship. Enquiring into case after case you meet constantly, in this matter of restriction in regard to marriage, with the reply that though a particular woman belongs to the right totem into which a man must marry, yet there is a further restriction preventing marriage in this particular case. For example, not every dingo may marry a particular water-hen woman. To a dingo man all water-hen women are divided into four groups, the members of which respectively stand to him in the relationship of (1) Nowillie or father's sisters; (2) Biaka, children or brothers' children; (3) Apillia, mother's younger brothers' daughters; (4) Nupa, mother's elder brothers' daughters. It will of course be understood that a mother's brother's child is identical with a father's sister's child, and that the fathers and brothers may be either blood or tribal.

We can, amongst the individuals named, distinguish women of three different levels of generation; the Nowillie belong to that of the father and to still older generations; the Biaka to younger ones and the Apillia and Nupa to the same generation as the individual concerned. A man can only marry women who stand to him in the relationship of Nupa, that is, are the children of his mother's elder brothers blood or tribal, or, what is the same thing, of his father's elder sisters. The mother of a man's Nupa is Nowillie to him, and any woman of that relationship is Mura to him and he to her, and they must not speak to one another. In connection with this it [P.62] must be remembered that it is not necessary for the woman to actually have a daughter for her to be Nowillie and so Mura to the man, the very fact that she was born a sister of his father places her in this relationship. In the same way Nupa, the term applied to a woman with whom it is lawful for a man to have marital relations, and which is thus the term applied to a wife, cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as at all the equivalent of the latter term. It is applied indiscriminately by a dingo man to each and every member of a group of water-hen women with one or more of whom he may perhaps actually have marital relations, but with any one of whom it is lawful and possible for him to do so. When we say possible for him to have such marital relations, we mean that any one of those women might be assigned to him, as they all, in fact, stand to him in the relationship of potential wives.

The word Nupa is without any exception applied indiscriminately by men of a particular group to women of another group, and vice versa, and simply implies a member of a group of possible wives or husbands as the case may be.

While this is so, it must be remembered that in actual practice each individual man has one or perhaps two of these Nupa women who are specially attached to himself and live with him in his own camp. In addition to them, however, each man has certain Nupa women, beyond the limited number just referred to, with whom he stands in the relationship of Piraungaru.³² To women who are the Piraungaru of a man (the term is a reciprocal one), the latter has access under certain conditions, so that they may be considered as accessory wives.

The result is that in the Urabunna tribe every woman is the special Nupa of one particular man, but at the same time he has no exclusive right to her as she is the Piraungaru of certain other men who also have the right of access to her. Looked at from the point of view of the man his Piraungaru are a limited number of the women who stand in the relationship of Nupa to him. There is no such thing as one man [P.63] having the exclusive right to one woman; the elder brothers, or Nuthie, of the latter, in whose hands the matter lies, will give one man a preferential right, but at the same time they will give other men of the same group a secondary right to her. Individual marriage does not exist either in name or in practice in the Urabunna tribe.

The initiation in regard to establishing the relationship of Piraungaru between a man and a woman must be taken by the elder brothers, but the arrangement must receive the sanction of the old men of the group before it can take effect. As a matter of actual practice, this relationship is usually established at times when considerable numbers of the tribe are gathered together to perform important ceremonies, and when these and other matters of importance which require the consideration of the old men are discussed and settled. The number of a man's Piraungaru depend entirely upon the measure of his power and popularity; if he be what is called “ūrkū,” a word which implies much the same as our word “influential,” he will have a considerable number, if he be insignificant or unpopular, then he will meet with scanty treatment.

A woman may be Piraungaru to a number of men, and as a general rule men and women who are Piraungaru to one another are to be found living grouped together. A man may always lend his wife, that is, the woman to whom he has the first right, to another man, provided always he be her Nupa, without the relationship of Piraungaru existing between the two, but unless this relationship exists, no man has any right of access to a woman. Occasionally, but rarely, it happens that a man attempts to prevent his wife's Piraungaru from having access to her, but this leads to a fight and the husband is looked upon as churlish. When visiting distant groups where, in all likelihood, the husband has no Piraungaru, it is customary for other men of his own class to offer him the loan of one or more of their Nupa women, and a man, besides lending a woman over whom he has the first right, will also lend his Piraungaru.

All the children of women who are Nupa to any man, whether they are his special Nupas, or Piraungaru, or Nupa [P.64] women with whom he has no marital relations, call him Nia, and he calls them Biaka. Whilst naturally there is a closer tie between a man and the children of the women who habitually live in camp with him, still there is no name to distinguish between the children of his special Nupa and those of any other woman to whom he is Nupa, but with whom he has no marital relations. All Biaka, or children of men who are at the same level in the generation and belong to the same class and totem, are regarded as the common children of these men, and in the same way the latter are regarded collectively by the Biaka as their Nia.

It will thus be seen that in the Urabunna tribe we have apparently an organisation closely similar to that described by Mr. Howitt as occurring in the Dieri tribe with which it is associated locally. It will also be evident that in both these tribes there is what can only be described as a modified form of group-marriage, the important features of which may be summarised as follows. We have:—

1. A group of men all of whom belong to one moiety of the tribe who are regarded as the Nupas or possible husbands of a group of women who belong to the other moiety of the tribe.

2. One or more women specially allotted to one particular man, each standing in the relationship of Nupa to the other, but no man having exclusive right to any one woman, only a preferential right.

3. A group of men who stand in the relationship of Piraungaru to a group of women selected from amongst those to whom they are Nupa. In other words, a group of women of a certain designation are actually the wives of a group of men of another designation.

A curious feature in the social organisation of the Urabunna tribe is the restriction in accordance with which a man's wife must belong to what we may call the senior side of the tribe so far as he himself is concerned. He is only Nupa to the female children of the elder brothers of his mother, or what is exactly the same thing, to those of the elder sisters of his father. It follows from this that a woman is only Nupa to men on the junior side of the tribe so far as she is concerned. [P.65] This marked distinction between elder and younger brothers and sisters is a striking feature, not only in tribes such as the Urabunna, in which descent is counted in the female line, but also in tribes such as the Arunta in which descent is counted in the male line.

If we draw up a genealogical tree in the Urabunna tribe, placing the elder members on the left side and the younger members on the right side, then every woman's Nupa lies to the right, and every man's to the left side of his or her position in the genealogical tree.

The following table gives the terms of relationship as they exist amongst the Urabunna tribe. It will be seen that we have given three columns of names, (1) the native names, (2) the exact equivalent of the native names in our English terms, and (3) the English terms included wholly or partly in the native terms. In this way it will be seen, for example, that there are no native words at all equivalent to our English terms cousin, uncle, aunt, nephew; in fact, as we have said before, unless all ideas of terms of relationship as counted amongst ourselves be abandoned, it is useless to try and understand the native terms. No native can understand how we can possibly apply the same term cousin to children of the brothers of a father and at the same time to children of the sisters of a father. In the same way it will be seen that a brother's children are perfectly distinct from those of a sister; if I am, say a crow man, then my brothers' children are born cicadas and my sisters' children are born crows. As my own children are cicadas, I naturally have a term in common between them and the cicada offspring of my brothers, and quite a different term for the crow children of my sisters.

It will be seen on examining the table that no man or woman applies the same name to, for example, both a crow and a cicada, and further still, that all the names are applied to groups of individuals all of whom stand in a definite relationship to the individual by whom the term is used.
In addition to the table we have also drawn up a genealogical tree which will perhaps aid in explaining what is without doubt a somewhat intricate subject, and in the table we have numbered each individual, and taking a particular individual have represented in tabular form the names [P.66] which he applies to the other members of the group so as to include and illustrate all the various terms as used.³³

[P.67] If we take the man numbered 25 in the genealogical tree we shall find that he applies the following names to the various individuals represented. It will be noticed that in connection with the woman numbered 14 we have given a separate branch line of descent, so as to be able to indicate the grand-parents on the maternal as well as the paternal side.

The man numbered 25 applies the following names to the various individuals:—

It may perhaps be wondered how the natives themselves become acquainted with what is to the average white man so apparently elaborate and even, at first sight, complicated, a scheme. In the first place it is not in reality so complicated as it appears, and if we lay aside all pre-conceived ideas of relationship and remember that the terms are constantly being used by the natives who live, so to speak, surrounded with object lessons in the form of the members of the local group, then the difficulty largely vanishes. Another thing to be remembered is that the relationship of one native to another is one of the most important points with which each individual must be acquainted. There are certain customs which are enforced by long usage and according to which [P.68] men and women of particular degrees of relationship may alone have marital relations, or may not speak to one another, or according to which one individual has to do certain things for another, such as providing the latter with food or with hair, as the case may be, and any breach of these customs is severely punished. The elder men of each group very carefully keep alive these customs, many of which are of considerable benefit to themselves, and when, as at any important ceremony, different groups are gathered together, then matters such as these are discussed, and in this way a knowledge of the various relationships is both gained and kept alive. When a man comes from a distant group, unless he be well known to the group into which he has come, the old men talk the matter over and very soon decide as to his standing.

It sometimes happens, in fact not infrequently, that a man from the neighbouring Arunta tribe comes to live amongst the Urabunna. In the former where it adjoins the latter there are four sub-classes, viz., Bulthara and Panunga, Kumara, and Purula, and in addition descent is counted in the male line. Accordingly the men of the Bulthara and Purula classes are regarded as the equivalents of the Matthurie moiety of the Urabunna tribe, and those of the Panunga and Kumara classes as the equivalents of the Kirarawa. In just the same way a Matthurie man going into the Arunta tribe becomes either a Bulthara or Purula, and a Kirarawa man becomes either a Panunga or a Kumara man. Which of the two a Matthurie man belongs to, is decided by the old men of the group into which he goes. Sometimes a man will take up his abode permanently, or for a long time, amongst the strange tribe, in which case, if it be decided, for example, that he is a Bulthara, then his children will be born Panunga, that is they belong to his own adopted moiety. He has, of course, to marry a Kumara woman, or if he be already provided with a wife, then she is regarded as a Kumara, and if he goes back into his own tribe then his wife is regarded as a Kirarawa and the children also take the same name.

This deliberate change in the grouping of the classes and sub-classes so as to make them fit in with the maternal line [P.69] of descent or with the paternal, as the case may be, will be more easily understood from the accompanying table.

The working out of this with the result that the children belong to the right moiety of the tribe into which the man has gone may be rendered clear by taking one or two particular examples.

Suppose that a Matthurie man goes into the Arunta tribe, then he is told by the old men of the group into which he has gone that he is, say, a Bulthara. Accordingly he marries a Kumara woman (or if, which is not very likely, he has brought a woman with him, then she is regarded as a Kumara) and his children will be Panunga, or, in other words, pass into the father's moiety as the sub-classes are arranged in the Arunta, but not into that of the mother as they are arranged amongst the Urabunna.

Again, suppose a Purula man from the Arunta tribe takes up his abode amongst the Urabunna. He becomes a Matthurie, and as such must marry a Kirarawa (or if married his wife is regarded as such). His children are Kirarawa, which includes the sub-class Kumara into which they would have passed in the Arunta tribe, and to which they will belong if ever they go into the latter.

These are not merely hypothetical cases but are, in the district where the two tribes come in contact with one another, of by no means infrequent occurrence; and, without laying undue stress upon the matter, this deliberate changing of the method of grouping the sub-classes so as to allow of the descent being counted in either the male or female line according to the necessity of the case, is of interest as indicating the fact that the natives are quite capable of thinking such things out for themselves. It is indeed not perhaps without a certain suggestiveness in regard to the difficult question of how a change in the line of descent might possibly be brought about.

[P.70] We may now turn to the consideration of the Arunta tribe in which descent is counted in the male line, and we may regard the Arunta as typical of the large group of tribes inhabiting the centre of the continent from Lake Eyre in the south to near Port Darwin in the north, in which descent is thus counted. The tribes with the classificatory systems of which we have knowledge are the Arunta, Ilpirra, Iliaura, Kaitish, Walpari, Warramunga, Waagai, and Bingongina, which occupy a range of country extending from the latitude of Macumba River in the south to about that of Powell's Creek in the north, that is over an area measuring from north to south some seven hundred and seventy miles (Fig. 1).

In regard to the organisation of the Arunta tribe, with which we shall now deal in detail, it may at the outset be mentioned that the existence of four sub-classes in the southern part of the tribe, and of eight in the northern, appears at first sight to indicate that in the latter the organisation is more complex. In reality, though without having distinct names applied to them, each one of the four sub-classes met with in the south is actually divided into two. The four are Panunga and Bulthara, Purula and Kumara; the first two forming one moiety of the tribe, and the latter two forming another. In camp, for example, the Panunga and Bulthara always camp together separated from the Purula and Kumara by some natural feature such as a creek. The Panunga and Bulthara speak of themselves as Nakrakia, and of the Purula and Kumara as Mulyanuka—the terms being reciprocal. Further details with regard to this, and evidence of this division into two moieties, are given in connection with the discussion of the Churinga and totems, and in the account of the Engwura.

The marriage system is, in broad outline, omitting at present certain details which will be referred to shortly, as follows. A Bulthara man marries a Kumara woman and their children are Panunga; a Purula man marries a Panunga woman and their children are Kumara; a Panunga man marries a Purula woman and their children are Bulthara; a Kumara man marries a Bulthara woman and their children are Purula.

[P.71] This may be graphically expressed following Mr. Howitt's plan (as already done by Dr. Stirling) in the following way.³⁷

In these diagrams the double arrow indicates the marriage connections and the single ones point to the name of the class of the children.

As a matter of fact these diagrams as they stand, though perfectly correct in stating, for example, that a Panunga man marries a Purula woman, are incomplete in that they do not show the important point that to a Panunga man the Purula women are divided into two groups the members of one of whom stand to him in the relationship of Unawa whom he may marry, while the members of the other stand in the relationship of Unkulla whom he may not marry. This fact is one of very considerable importance. Each of the four sub-classes is thus divided into two, the members of which stand respectively in the relationship of Ipmunna to each other. We can represent this graphically as follows, taking, for the sake of simplicity, only two sub-classes, the divisions of one being represented by the letters A and B, and of the other by the letters C and D.

A stands in the relationship of Unawa to C, Ipmunna to B, and Unkulla to D. In other words a woman who is Unkulla to me is Ipmunna to my wife. All women of group C (myself belonging to A), my wife calls sisters—Ungaraitcha if they be elder sisters, and Itia if they be younger sisters; and all of [P.72] them stand in the relationship of Unawa to myself; but the other Purula women whom my wife calls Ipmunna are Unkulla to me and I may not marry them.

It is somewhat perplexing after learning that a Panunga man must marry a Purula woman to meet with the statement, when inquiring into particular cases, that a given Panunga man must not marry a particular Purula woman, but in the northern part of the tribe matters are simplified by the existence of distinct names for the two groups; the relationship term of Ipmunna still exists, but if I am, for example, a Panunga man, then all my Ipmunna men and women are designated by the term Uknaria, and in the following tables the eight divisions are laid down, and it will be noticed that the old name is used for one-half and a new name adopted for the other.

The double arrows indicate the marriage connections.

This division into eight has been adopted (or rather the names for the four new divisions have been), in recent times by the Arunta tribe from the Ilpirra tribe which adjoins the former on the north, and the use of them is, at the present time, spreading southwards. At the Engwura ceremony which we witnessed men of the Ilpirra tribe were present, as well as a large number of others from the southern part of the Arunta amongst whom the four new names are not yet in use.

We have found the following table of considerable service to ourselves in working as, by its means, the various relationships fall into regular arrangement and can be readily indicated.

This table was drawn up in the first instance in order to show the marriage relationships and the divisions into which [P.73] the children pass. Thus, reading across the page, men of the sub-classes shown in column 1 must marry women of the sub-classes shown in column 2. For example, a Panunga man marries a Purula woman, an Uknaria man an Ungalla woman, and so on. Column 3 in the same way indicates their children, those of a Panunga man and a Purula woman being Appungerta, those of an Uknaria man and an Ungalla woman being Bulthara, &c. In the same way if a man of one of the sub-classes in column 2 marries a woman in one of those in column 1, then their children are as represented in column 4. That is, a Purula man marries a Panunga woman and their children are Kumara, and so on.

When, however, we came to deal with the various terms of relationship used in the tribe, we found that they also fell into orderly arrangement in the table, and could be easily shown by means of it.

It will be seen from the table that, as compared with the Urabunna tribe, marriage appears to be very much more restricted, because a man may only marry a woman who belongs to one of eight divisions into which the whole is divided. In the Arunta tribe, however, as will be described in the chapter dealing with the totems, there is, unlike most Australian tribes, no restriction whatever, so far as the totems are concerned. It may therefore be, perhaps, a matter of doubt as to how far the totems of the Arunta are the exact equivalents of those yet described as existing amongst other Australian tribes. Every Arunta native thinks that his ancestor in the Alcheringa³⁸ was the descendant of the animal or plant, or at least was immediately associated with the object the name of which he bears as his totemic name. In many Australian tribes it seems to be a general custom that a man must not eat or injure his totem, whereas amongst the Arunta there are special occasions on which the totem is eaten, and there is no rule absolutely forbidding the eating of the totem at other times, though it is clearly understood that it must only be partaken of very sparingly. However, though the totems of the Arunta are in certain respects [P.74] unlike those yet described in other Australian tribes, still there can be no doubt but that they are correctly designated by this name, the most important feature in which they differ from those of other parts of Australia being that they have no reference to customs concerning marriage.

In the Arunta tribe, unlike the Urabunna, there is, as soon as marriage has taken place, a restriction, except on certain special occasions which are subsequently described, of a particular woman to a particular man, or rather, a man has an exclusive right to one special woman though he may of his own free will lend her to other men.

Despite this fact, there is no term applied to a woman who is thus the peculiar property of one man, the woman is simply spoken of as Unawa to the man in just the same way in which all the other women are who belong to the group from which the man's wife must come. The terms of relationship are not individual terms, but, just as in the Urabunna and other tribes in some of which we have a form of group marriage existing as an actual institution at the present day, the terms are group terms. To take an example—a Panunga man will have some special woman allotted to him as an individual wife, but the only term which he applies to her is Unawa, and that term he also applies to all the women of her group, each of whom might lawfully have been allotted to him. She is one out of a group of potential wives. When, again, a man lends his wife, he only does so to a member of his own group, that is to a man to whom, without having been allotted to him, the woman stands in the relationship of Unawa just as she does to the man to whom she has been allotted. In the southern part of the tribe, where only the four divisions exist, a Panunga man will not lend his Unawa to a man who belongs to the half of the Panunga to which he himself does not belong, that is he will not lend her to an Ipmunna man but only to men who are Okilia or Itia to him; and in the same way he will only have lent to him a Purula woman to whom he is Unawa and not one to whom he is Unkulla. In the northern division the original Panunga is divided up into Panunga and Ungalla, and here a Panunga man only lends his wife to a Panunga, an Ungalla to an [P.75] Ungalla, and so on. In this northern part in must be remembered that the Panunga men are the exact equivalents to another Panunga man of the Okilia and Itia, that is the tribal brothers of the southern part, while the Ungalla correspond to the Ipmunna.

The same group terms are applied in all other cases. Thus a man calls his own children Allira, and applies the same term to all his blood and tribal brothers' children, while all his sisters' children are Umba. If, again, I am a Panunga man, then my wife is Purula, and her actual father is a Kumara man. Not only do I call this particular man Ikuntera or father-in-law, but, where the eight divisions are in force, I apply the same name to all Kumara men. They are one and all the fathers of women whom it is lawful for me to marry.

That this group relationship is actually recognised is made clear by a variety of facts. If, for example, one of my Ikuntera dies, it is my duty to cut my shoulders with a stone knife as a mark of sorrow. If I neglect to do this, then any one of the men who are Ikuntera to me has the right to take away my wife and give her to some other man to whom she is Unawa. I have not only, supposing it to be the actual father of my wife who has died, neglected to do my duty to him, but I have offended the group collectively, and any member of that group may punish me. Again, if I am out hunting and have caught game, and while carrying this home to my camp I chance to meet a man standing to me in the relationship of Ikuntera, I should at once have to drop the food, which, from the fact of its having been seen by any one member of that group, has become tabu to me.

In just the same way amongst the women we see clear instances of customs founded on the existence of group relationship. When a child dies not only does the actual Mia, or mother, cut herself, but all the sisters of the latter, who also are Mia to the dead child, cut themselves. All women call their own children Umba, and apply precisely the same term to the children of their sisters, blood and tribal.

The tables which follow give the terms of relationship existing amongst the Arunta, Luritcha, Kaitish and Warramunga, [P.76] and, in the case of the Arunta, we have drawn up a genealogical tree and, taking a man and his alloted Unawa, have arranged in tabular form the various terms which they respectively apply to other individuals, whose relationship to them can be seen on the tree.

For the purpose of comparison we have made the genealogical tree identical with that used in the case of the Urabunna tribe, the individuals being numbered alike on both trees.

If we take the man numbered 25 on the genealogical tree, which, it may be said, applies to both the Ilpirra and Arunta tribes, with slight variation in the names, we shall find that he applies the following names to the individuals indicated by their respective numbers. It will be noticed that two small branch lines are added to show descent in the maternal line.

The man numbered 25 applies the following names to the various individuals:—

[P.82]  The woman numbered 38 applies the following names to the various individuals:—

A comparison of the terms of relationship here set forth with those in use amongst other tribes, which have been described by Messrs. Howitt and Fison, and more recently and in most valuable detail by Mr. Roth, will serve to show how widely a similar series of terms is in use amongst the various Australian tribes.

We will further exemplify the system by taking a man of one particular group and describe in detail the various relationships which exist between him and other members of the tribe. These and all details given have been derived from various individuals and families, and have been corroborated time after time.

After ascertaining the various relationships we found that they could be represented graphically and in orderly arrangement by means of the table already employed, and, as we have found this table of the greatest service to ourselves in dealing with this somewhat intricate subject, we will make use of it here.

[P.83]

The brackets signify groups, the members of which are mutually Ipmunna to each other.

Column 3 are the children of men of column 1 and of women of column 2. This applies to groups on the same horizontal line in the table. Thus an Appungerta is the child of a Panunga man and a Purula woman; a Panunga is the child of an Appungerta man and an Umbitchana woman. The same remark applies to all the other relationships indicated; thus a Panunga man is Gammona to a Kumara.

Column 4 are the children of men of column 2 and of the women of column 1.
A man of column 1 is Unawa to a woman of column 2 and vice versa, and Umbirna to a man of column 2. A woman of column 2 is Intinga to a woman of column 1, and vice versa.
Column 1 contains men who are Gammona of men and women of column 4.
Column 4 contains men who are Ikuntera or Umba of men, and Nimmera of women, of column 1.
Column 2 contains men who are Gammona of men and women of column 3.
Column 3 contains men who are Ikuntera or Umba of men, and Nimmera of women, of column 2.
Men and women of columns 3 and 4 stand mutually in the relationship of Unkulla or Chimmia.
Women of columns 3 and 4 stand mutually in the relationship of Ilchella.

In column 1 the larger and smaller brackets on the right side indicate the relationship of Uwinna, the overlapping [P.84] brackets on the left indicate that of Mura. In column 4 the reverse holds true, the brackets on the left indicate the relationship of Uwinna, and those on the right side that of Mura.
Taking now the case of an individual member of a particular group, we may describe as follows the various relationships in which he stands with regard to the other members of the tribe. We will suppose that this particular individual is an Appungerta man living in the northern part of the tribe where the division into eight groups exists, and we will suppose him to be speaking—

If I am an Appungerta man then—
My father is a Panunga.
All Uknaria are Ipmunna to him and Mura to me—that is, I may not speak to them if they be women. The daughters of Ungalla men and Uknaria women are Umbitchana and Unawa to me—that is, they are women whom I may lawfully marry, and one or more of whom are allotted to me as wives. The mother of the woman who is allotted to me is my Tualcha-mura.
The sons of Uknaria women, that is the brothers of my Unawa, are Umbirna to me; so that Umbitchana men are Umbirna to Appungerta men, and vice versa.
I call my father Oknia.
All men whom my father calls Okilia, elder brothers, or Witia, younger brother, are Panunga, and they are Oknia to me. I call his Okilia, Oknia aniaura, and his Itia, Oknia alkulla.
My Oknia's sisters are Panunga, and they are Uwinna to me. That is, Panunga women are Uwinna to Appungerta men.
All women whom my wife calls Ungaraitcha, elder sisters, or Quitia, younger sisters, are Umbitchana, and they also are Unawa to me.
All women whom my wife calls Ipmunna are Kumara, and they are Unkulla to me.
Speaking as an Arunta man living in a part where only four sub-classes are recognised, all the women of my wife's class, who in this case would be Kumara, I myself belonging [P.85] to the Bulthara, are divided into two sets, the members of one of whom are Unawa to me, so that I can marry them; while the members of the other are Unkulla, whom I may not marry. The latter are Ipmunna to my wife. I can only marry a woman who stands in the relationship of daughter to the women of the half of my father's class to which he does not belong—that is, who are Ipmunna to him.
My Ipmunna are Bulthara.
My Unkulla women are Kumara, and they must marry Bulthara men, and their children are Mura to me. That is, the relationship of Mura arises from the marriage of male Ipmunna and female Unkulla. This is an important relationship, as a Mura woman is the mother of my wife.
My Umbirna are Umbitchana men, who are the sons of Uknaria women—that is, of my female Mura.
My Ungaraitcha, elder sisters, and Quitia, younger sisters, are Appungerta, and are Unawa to my Umbirna, who are Umbitchana men.
The children of my Ungaraitcha and Quitia are Ungalla. I call them Allira and they call me Gammona—that is, Appungerta men are Gammona to Ungalla men and women.
My own and my brother's children are Allira to me, and I am Oknia to them. My mother is Purula. She calls her elder sisters Ungaraitcha and her younger ones Quitia. I call them all Mia. That is, Purula women are Mia to Appungerta men. Her elder sisters I call Mia apmarla, and her younger sisters Mia alkulla.⁴³

Speaking again as an Arunta man only recognising four sub-classes the women of the class to which my mother belongs are divided into two groups, the members of one of which have the relationship of Mia to me and those of the other that of Umba.

The children of the Okilia of my Oknia, that is my father's elder brothers' children, will be Appungerta as I am, and they will be according to sex, my Okilia, elder brothers, or Ungaraitcha, elder sisters.
The children of my Oknia's Ungaraitcha and of his Quitia [P.86] are Kumara, and are Unkulla to me and Ipmunna to my wife.
The children of my Oknia's Okilia call me Witia or younger brother, and the children of my Oknia's Witia call me Okilia, and I call them Witia.
The children of my Okilia and Witia, that is of my elder and younger brothers, call me Oknia, just as my own children do, and I call them Allira, and they are Panunga.
The children of my Ungaraitcha and Quitia, that is of my sisters, I call Umba, and they are Ungalla.

That is, once more speaking as an Arunta man recognising only four sub-classes, my own and my brother's children go into the same sub-class as that to which my father belongs, whilst my sister's children go into the sub-class to which my mother belongs, but into the half of it to which she does not belong. That is, relations whom we class together as nephews or nieces as the case may be, are either, in respect to a man, Allira, that is, brother's children, or Umba, that is, sister's children. It will be noted that the terms Allira and Umba are applied to individuals of both sexes, so that each of them includes individuals whom we call nephews or nieces.

My male Allira's children are Appungerta, and are Arunga to me and I to them, the term being a reciprocal one.
My Allira are Panunga and my Umba are Ungalla, and these two are Unkulla to each other.
My Allira call my Ungaraitcha and Quitia, that is, my elder and younger sisters, Uwinna. That is, Appungerta women are Uwinna to Panunga men and women.
The children of my female Allira, that is of my daughters, are Kumara, and they are Chimmia to me and I to them. The term Chimmia expresses the relationship of grandfather or grandchild on the mother's side, just as the term Arunga expresses the same on the father's side.
My male Chimmias' male children will be Purula and Gammona to me, that is they are the blood and tribal brothers of my Mias.
My male Chimmias' female children will be Purula and Mia to me.
[P.87] The children of my female Chimmia are Uknaria and are Mura to me, and they are the Mias of my wife.
My sisters are Appungerta and the daughters of my father's sisters are Kumara, and therefore stand in the relationship of Ilchella to each other; the relationship of Ilchella only exists between women. That is, if I am an Appungerta man, then my father's sister's sons and daughters will be Kumara and Unkulla to me. If I am an Appungerta woman then my father's sister's daughters will be Ilchella to me.
My mother's mother is Bulthara and is Ipmunna to me.
My father's mother is Umbitchana and Aperla to me.
There are certain differences in the terms used if a woman be speaking which may be noted here. Thus, if I am an Appungerta woman, then I call my own and my sister's children Umba, but I call my brother's Allira.
I apply the term Urumpa to brothers and sisters collectively and also to men and women who are Unkulla to me.
The sisters of my husband are Umbitchana, and are Intinga to me and Unawa to my brothers.
The daughters of my father's sisters are Kumara and Ilchella to me.
The sons of my father's sisters are Kumara and are Unkulla to me.
My husband's father is Ungalla, and I call him and he calls me Nimmera; the same term applies to all men whose sons are born Unawa to me.

There is a special term Tualcha which is applied in the case of three particular relationships, or rather is added to the usual one in order to show the existence of a special connection between the individuals concerned.⁴⁴ Thus, every man calls the members of a particular group by the name of [P.88] Ikuntera or father-in-law, but the particular one whose daughter has actually been assigned to him—whether he has married her or not has nothing to do with the case—he calls Ikuntera-tualcha. He may have other wives, but unless the mutual agreement was made between his and the girl's father that he should have the girl to wife, then the father of the latter is not spoken of as Tualcha. In the same way the special Mura woman to whose daughter a man is betrothed in his Mura-tualcha, and, lastly, the individual who is Ikuntera-tualcha to one man, is Unkulla-tualcha to the father of the latter. If, for example, I am an Appungerta man, then my Ikuntera-tualcha is an Ungalla man, and he is Unkulla-tualcha to my father.

It will be noticed that distinct names are given to elder and younger brothers and elder and younger sisters. Thus not only are my elder sisters in blood called Ungaraitcha, but the daughters of women whom my mother calls Ungaraitcha are Ungaraitcha to me, and those of women whom my mother called Quitia are Quitia to me. There are, however, certain exceptions to this which are of interest as showing the influence of counting descent in the male line. Not infrequently two brothers in blood will marry two sisters in blood. When this takes place the usual plan is for the elder brother to marry the elder sister; should, however, the elder sister marry the younger brother, then seniority is counted in the male line. In this case the sons and daughters of the younger daughter are the elder brothers and sisters of those of the elder sister.

A curious custom exists with regard to the mutual behaviour of elder and younger sisters and their brothers. A man may speak freely to his elder sisters in blood, but those who are tribal Ungaraitcha must only be spoken to at a considerable distance. To younger sisters, blood and tribal, he may not speak, or at least, only at such a distance that the features are indistinguishable. A man, for example, would speak to his tribal Ungaraitcha or elder sister at a distance of say forty yards, but he would not address his Quitia or younger sisters unless they were at least 100 yards away. [P.89] At night-time Ungaraitcha and Quitia may go to their brother's camp, and if he be present they may, sitting in the darkness where their faces are not distinguishable, converse with his Unawa or wife. We cannot discover any explanation of this restriction in regard to the younger sister; it can hardly be supposed that it has anything to do with the dread of anything like incest, else why is there not as strong a restriction in the case of the elder sisters? That there is some form of tabu, or, as the Arunta natives call it, ekirinja, in regard to the younger sister is shown also by the fact that a man can never inherit the Churinga of a deceased younger sister, but always inherits, on the other hand, those of a deceased elder sister.

In the tables which follow, we give the intermarrying groups of seven other tribes corresponding to those of the Arunta tribe; those of the Ilpirra are identical with the latter, which indeed, have been derived in their present form from the Ilpirra tribe. In all cases, men of column 1 marry women of column 2, and their children are as arranged in column 3; men of column 2 marry women of column 1, and their children are represented in column 4.

In the case of three tribes, Warramunga, Bingongina and Walpari, the system becomes still further complicated by the addition of distinct names for females. These names are those printed in brackets. In these cases a man of column 1, marries a woman of column 2, whose name is in brackets, and their children are shown in column 3. In the Warramunga tribe, for example, a Thapanunga man marries a Naralu, and their children, if males, are Thapungerta, and if females, Napungerta. In the same way a Chupilla man marries a Napanunga woman, and their children, if males, are Thakomara, if females, Nakomara.

The tables are arranged so that the equivalent groups in the various tribes can be seen at a glance. An Ilpirra Panunga man visiting the Waagi is regarded as a Pungarinju, and amongst the Bingongina he is a Tchana. An Ilpirra Purula woman amongst the Iliaura is regarded as an Upilla, and amongst the Bingongina as a Nala, and so on.

[P.92]

Chapter III Certain Ceremonies Concerned with Marriage Together with a Discussion Regarding the Same.

Marriage ceremony in the northern Arunta and Ilpirra tribes—Ceremony in the southern Arunta—Ceremony in the Kaitish, Warramunga, Iliaura, Waagai, Bingongina, Walpari and Luritcha tribes—On these occasions men standing in a definite relationship to the woman have access to her—Ceremonies are of the nature of those described by Sir John Lubbock as indicative of “expiation for marriage”—To be regarded as rudimentary customs—Sexual license during corrobborees in the Arunta, Kaitish, Iliaura and Warramunga tribes—This is not, strictly speaking, the lending of wives, as it is obligatory—Feeling of sexual jealousy not strongly enough developed amongst these tribes to prevent the occurrence of general intercourse or lending of wives—The putting of a man to death for wrongful intercourse is no proof of the existence of sexual jealousy—Term lending of wives restricted to private and voluntary lending by one man to another—Discussion of certain parts of Westermarck's criticism of the theory of promiscuity so far as concerns the tribes now dealt with—Customs at marriage and at certain other times afford evidence of the former existence of a time when there existed wider marital relations than now obtain.

WHILST under ordinary circumstances in the Arunta and other tribes one man is only allowed to have marital relations with women of a particular class, there are customs which allow, at certain times, of a man having such relations with women to whom at other times he would not on any account be allowed to have access. We find, indeed, that this holds true in the case of all the nine different tribes with the marriage customs of which we are acquainted, and in which a woman becomes the private property of one man.

The following is the custom amongst the Arunta and Ilpirra tribes. When a girl arrives at marriageable age, which is usually about fourteen or fifteen, the man to whom she has been allotted speaks to his Unkulla men, and they, together with men who are Unkulla and Unawa to the girl, but not [P.93] including her future husband, take her out into the bush and there perform the operation called Atna-ariltha-kuma (atna, vulva; kuma, cut.⁴⁵ The operation is conducted with a stone knife and the operator who is, except in the southern Arunta, a man who is Ipmunna to the girl, carries with him one of the small wooden Churinga called Namatwinna with which before operating he touches the lips of the vulva, so as to prevent too great a loss of blood. When the operation has been performed, the Ipmunna, Unkulla and Unawa have access to her in the order named. This ceremony is often performed during the progress of an Altherta or ordinary corrobboree when, during the day time, the men habitually assemble at the corrobboree ground. When it is over the woman's head is decorated, by the Ipmunna man who operated, with head bands and tufts of Alpita,⁴⁶ the neck with necklaces, the arms with bands of fur string, and her body is painted all over with a mixture of fat and red ochre. Thus decorated, she is taken to the camp of her special Unawa by the men who have taken part in the ceremony and who have meanwhile painted themselves with charcoal.⁴⁷ On the day following the husband will most likely—though there is no obligation for him to do so—send her to the same men, and after that she becomes his special wife, to whom no one else has right of access; though at times a man will lend his wife to a stranger as an act of courtesy, always provided that he belongs to the right class, that is, to the same as himself. After wearing the decorations for a few days, the woman returns them to her Ipmunna man.

By reference to the tables already given, it will be clearly seen that on this occasion men of forbidden groups have access to the woman. Suppose, for example, that she is a Purula. Her proper Unawa will be a Panunga man, and such an one is normally the only one with whom she may have [P.94] marital relations. The woman's Ipmunna is an Ungalla man, that is, a man who belongs to her own moiety of the tribe; her Unkulla are Uknaria, that is, they belong to the half of her husband's class into which she may not marry. In addition to these forbidden men, there are the Unawa or men who are her lawful husbands, so far as their class is concerned, but whose general right of access to her is lost when she is allotted to some special individual amongst them.

In the southern Arunta the operation is performed by a man who is Nimmera to the woman, that is, a man of the same class as the father of her future husband. For example, if she be again a Purula the man will be a Bulthara. The ceremony is performed when a considerable number of men are together in camp, and the details vary somewhat from those in the northern part. A brother of the woman who has been told by the man that he, the latter, intends to claim his alloted Unawa takes the initiative and tells those who are not participating in the ceremony to remain in camp. Individuals who stand in the relationship to her of Mia, Oknia, Okilia, Ungaraitcha, Gammona, Ipmunna and the particular Unawa to whom she is allotted, sit down in camp, the woman being amongst them. Then a man who is Nimmera to her comes up behind, and, touching the woman on the shoulder, tells her to follow him. He goes away accompanied by perhaps two other Nimmera, one or two who are Unkulla to her, and one or two who are Unawa, that is, are of the same class as her future husband. After the ceremony has been performed, she is decorated and brought back to the camp, and told to sit down immediately behind her special Unawa whom, after a short time, she accompanies to his camp. That night he lends her to one or two men who are Unawa to her, and afterwards she belongs exclusively to him.

Amongst the Kaitish tribe the operation is performed by an Arari or elder sister of the woman, and men of the following relationship have access in the order indicated. Atmini, the equivalents of the Ipmunna amongst the Arunta; Atinkilia mothers' brothers' sons; Alkiriia and Achirri, elder and younger brothers (but not in blood); Gammona and Umbirniia the equivalent of the Unawa amongst the Arunta. It will be [P.95] seen that in the Kaitish tribe, the usual restrictions are even more notably broken than in the Arunta, for right of access is granted to men who are tribal brothers.

Amongst the Warramunga tribe the operation is performed either by a man who is Turtundi, the equivalent of Ipmunna in the Arunta, or, as amongst the Kaitish, by an elder sister. Men of the following relationship subsequently have access in the order named. Turtundi or Ipmunna; Wankili, father's sisters' sons; Papirti and Kukatcha, elder and younger brothers (not in blood); Kullakulla, the equivalents of the Unawa in the Arunta.

Amongst the Iliaura tribe the operation is performed by an Ipmunna man and the following, using the equivalent terms of the Arunta, have access in the order named; Ipmunna, Unkulla, Okilia, Itia, and Unawa.

In the Waagai and Bingongina tribes the ceremony is the same as in the Warramunga.

In the Walpari tribe the ceremony, as amongst the southern Arunta, is performed by a man who belongs to the same class as the woman's father-in-law, and is called Kulkuna; and men of the following relationship have access in the order named. Kulkuna; Thathana, the equivalents of the Ipmunna; Wankillina or mothers' brothers' sons; Papertina and Kukernina, elder and younger brothers; and Kullakulla, the equivalents of the Unawa of the Arunta.
In the Luritcha tribe the operation is performed by a man who is Sthamu to the woman, that is, grandfather on the father's side; and men of the following relationship have access in the order named—Sthamu; Watchira, mothers' brothers' sons; Ukari, sisters' sons; Kuri, the equivalents of the Unawa of the Arunta.

It will be seen that in the nine tribes referred to there is a substantial agreement in the ceremonies concerned with marriage. It must of course be understood that they refer to the marriage of men and women who have been allotted to one another in one or other of the various ways which obtain amongst the tribes dealt with. In all these tribes we find that individual marriage exists, though in none of them is there a special term applied to the special wife, apart from the [P.96] general one given in common to her and other women of her group whom it is lawful for a man to marry and outside of whom he may not marry.

In each tribe, again, we find at this particular time when a woman is being, so to speak, handed over to one particular man, that special individuals representing groups with which at ordinary times she may have no intercourse, have the right of access to her. In the majority of tribes, even tribal brothers are included amongst them. The individuals who are thus privileged vary from tribe to tribe, but in all cases the striking feature is that, for the time being, the existence of what can only be described as partial promiscuity can clearly be seen. By this we do not mean that marital rights are allowed to any man, but that for a time such rights are allowed to individuals to whom at other times the woman is ekirinja, or forbidden. The ceremonies in question are of the nature of those which Sir John Lubbock has described as indicative of “expiation for marriage,” and it is at least very probable that the customs are to be regarded as pointing back to the former existence of an exercise of wider marital rights than those which now obtain in the various tribes. They may in fact be best described as rudimentary customs in just the same way in which we speak of rudimentary structures amongst animals and plants. Just also as the latter are regarded as representative of parts which were once functional in ancestral forms, so also may we regard these rudimentary customs as lingering relics of a former stage passed through in the development of the present social organisation of the various tribes in which they are found.

In addition to the ceremonies which are concerned with marriage, there is another custom of somewhat the same nature, to which reference may be made here. In the eastern and north-eastern parts of the Arunta, and in the Kaitish Iliaura, and Warramunga tribes, considerable license is allowed on certain occasions, when a large number of men and women are gathered together to perform certain corrobborees. When an important one of these is held, it occupies perhaps ten days or a fortnight; and during that time the men, and especially the elder ones, but by no means exclusively [P.97] these, spend the day in camp preparing decorations to be used during the evening. Every day two or three women are told off to attend at the corrobboree ground, and, with the exception of men who stand in the relation to them of actual father, brother, or sons, they are, for the time being, common property to all the men present on the corrobboree ground. In the Arunta tribe the following is exactly what takes place: a man goes to another who is actually or tribally his son-in-law, that is, one who stands to him in the relationship of Gammona, and says to the latter: “You will take my Unawa into the bush⁴⁸ and bring in with you some undattha altherta” (down used for decorating during ordinary corrobborees). The Gammona then goes away, followed by the woman who has been previously told what to do by her husband. This woman is actually Mura to the Gammona, that is, one to whom under ordinary circumstances he may not even speak or go near, much less have anything like marital relations with. After the two have been out in the bush they return to the camp, the man carrying undattha and the woman following with green twigs, which the men will wear during the evening dance, tied round their arms and ankles. There will be perhaps two or three of these women present on each day, and to them any man present on the ground, except those already mentioned, may have access. During the day they sit near to the men watching but taking no part in the preparation of decorations. The natives say that their presence during the preparations and the sexual indulgence, which was a practice of the Alcheringa, prevents anything from going wrong with the performance; it makes it impossible for the head decorations, for example, to become loose and disordered during the performance. At evening the women are painted with red ochre by the men, and then they return to the main camp to summon the women and children to the corrobboree.

In connection with this subject, a curious custom concerned with messengers may be noticed here. In the case of the Urabunna tribe it is usual to send as messengers, when [P.98] summoning distant groups, a man and a woman, or sometimes two pairs, who are Piraungaru to each other. The men carry as evidence of their mission bunches of cockatoo feathers and nose bones. After the men have delivered their message and talked matters over with the strangers, they take the women out a short distance from the camp, where they leave them. If the members of the group which they are visiting decide to comply with their request, all men irrespective of class have access to the women; but, if it be decided not to comply with the request, then the latter are not visited. In much the same way, when a party of men intent on vengeance comes near to the strange camp of which they intend to kill some member, the use of women may be offered to them. If they be accepted, then the quarrel is at an end, as the acceptance of this favour is a sign of friendship. To accept the favour and then not to comply with the desire of the people offering it, would be a gross breach of tribal custom.

So far, then, as the marital relations of the tribes are concerned, we find that whilst there is individual marriage, there are, in actual practice, occasions on which the relations are of a much wider nature. We have, indeed, in this respect three very distinct series of relationships. The first is the normal one, when the woman is the private property of one man, and no one without his consent can have access to her, though he may lend her privately to certain individuals who stand in one given relationship to her. The second is the wider relation in regard to particular men at the time of marriage. The third is the still wider relation which obtains on certain occasions, such as the holding of important corrobborees.

The first of these is purely a private matter, and it is only to this that the term lending of wives can be properly applied, and to it we restrict the term in the following pages. The second and third are what we may call matters of public nature, by which we mean that the individuals concerned have no choice in the matter, and the women cannot be withheld by the men whose individual wives they either are to be, or already are.

In the case of the women who attend the corrobboree, it is supposed to be the duty of every man at different times [P.99] to send his wife to the ground, and the most striking feature in regard to it is that the first man who has access to her is the very one to whom, under normal conditions, she is most strictly tabu, that is, her Mura. This definite way of breaking through the rules of tabu appears to show that the custom has some very definite significance more than can be explained by merely referring it to a feeling of hospitality, and the fact that every man in turn is obliged by public custom to thus relinquish, for the time being, his possession of the woman who has been allotted to him, strengthens the idea. At the same time, as young and old men alike have to do so at some time or other, it is impossible to regard it as a right which is forcibly taken by strong men from weaker ones. It is a custom of ancient date which is sanctioned by public opinion, and to the performance of which neither men nor women concerned offer any opposition.

In connection with this, it may be worth while noting that amongst the Australian natives with whom we have come in contact, the feeling of sexual jealousy is not developed to anything like the extent to which it would appear to be in many other savage tribes. For a man to have unlawful intercourse with any woman arouses a feeling which is due not so much to jealousy as to the fact that the delinquent has infringed a tribal custom. If the intercourse has been with a woman who belongs to the class from which his wife comes, then he is called atna nylkna (which, literally translated, is vulva-thief); if with one with whom it is unlawful for him to have intercourse, then he is called iturka, the most opprobrious term in the Arunta tongue. In the one case he has merely stolen property, in the other he has offended against tribal law.

Now and again sexual jealousy as between a man and woman will come into play, but as a general rule this is a feeling which is undoubtedly subservient to that of the influence of tribal custom, so far as the latter renders it obligatory for a man to allow other men, at certain times, to have free access to his wife, or so far as it directs him to lend his wife to some other individual as a mark of personal favour to the latter.

[P.100] Whilst jealousy is not unknown amongst these tribes, the point of importance in respect to the matter under discussion is that it is not strongly enough developed to prevent the occurrence of general intercourse on certain occasions, or the lending of wives at other times; it is, indeed, a factor which need not be taken into serious account in regard to the question of sexual relations amongst the Central Australian tribes. A man in these tribes may be put to death for wrongful intercourse, but at the same time this is no proof of the fact that sexual jealousy exists; it is a serious offence against tribal laws, and its punishment has no relation to the feelings of the individual.

We may now pass on to discuss briefly the customs relating to marriage which have already been enumerated, and in so doing, as we have often to refer to the lending of wives, it must be remembered that we use this term only as applying to the private lending of a woman to some other individual by the man to whom she has been allotted, and do not refer to the custom at corrobborees which has just been dealt with, and which, as it is in reality obligatory and not optional, cannot be regarded as a lending in the same sense in which the term is used in connection with the former custom.

In his well-known work dealing with human marriage, Westermarck⁴⁹ has brought together, from various sources, facts relating to similar customs, and, while discussing the hypothesis of promiscuity from an adverse point of view, has endeavoured to explain them as due to various causes. These we may conveniently discuss, examining each briefly in the endeavour to ascertain whether it will or will not serve to explain the marriage customs as we find them in Australian tribes, of which those quoted above may be taken as typical examples. It must be understood that we are here simply dealing with this question so far as the evidence derived from these Australian tribes is concerned.

The first explanation offered is that in certain instances the practice is evidently associated with phallic worship, as, for example, when in the valley of the Ganges, the virgins had to offer themselves up in the temples of Juggernaut. This [P.101] implies a state of social development very different from, and much more advanced than, anything met with amongst the Australian natives, and the two customs are evidently quite distinct from one another. It is doubtful how far phallic worship can be said to exist amongst the Australian natives.

In other cases where the bride is for a night considered the common property of the guests at a wedding feast, Westermarck suggests that “It may have been a part of the nuptial entertainment—a horrible kind of hospitality no doubt, but quite in accordance with savage ideas, and analogous to another custom which occurs much more frequently—I mean the practice of lending wives.” This presupposes, and in fact is co-existent with, what does not take place in Australian tribes, and that is a more or less regular marriage ceremony at which guests assemble, and such an organised proceeding cannot be said to exist amongst the tribes with which we are dealing; moreover, apart from this, which is not perhaps a very serious objection, though it seems to imply a state of development considerably in advance of that of the Australian natives, there still remains what appears to us to be the insuperable difficulty of accounting, on this hypothesis, for the fact that this “hospitality” amongst Australian tribes is only allowed to a limited number of individuals, all of whom must stand in some particular relationship to the woman.

Westermarck further suggests that it is analogous to the custom of lending wives. Now, amongst the Australian natives wives are certainly lent, but only under strict rules; in the Arunta tribe for example no man will lend his wife to any one who does not belong to the particular group with which it is lawful for her to have marital relations—she is in fact, only lent to a man whom she calls Unawa, just as she calls her own husband, and though this may undoubtedly be spoken of as an act of hospitality, it may with equal justice be regarded as evidence of the very clear recognition of group relationship, and as evidence also in favour of the former existence of group marriage.

It is quite true, on the other hand, that a native will sometimes offer his wife, as an act of hospitality, to a white man; but this has nothing to do with the lending of wives which [P.102] has just been dealt with, and the difference between the two acts is of a radical nature. The white man stands outside the laws which govern the native tribe, and therefore to lend him a wife of any designation does not imply the infringement of any custom. This is purely and simply, as Westermarck points out, an act of hospitality, but the very fact that he will only lend his wife, if he does so at all, to another native of a particular designation, seems to at once imply that we are dealing with a custom at the root of which lies something much more than merely an idea of hospitality. The lending of women to men outside the tribe who are not amenable to its laws and customs is one thing, to lend them to men who are members of the tribe is quite another thing, and the respective origins of the customs in these two radically different cases are probably totally distinct—one is no doubt to be explained on the hypothesis of hospitality, the other is not. The hypothesis of hospitality does not, in short, appear to us to be capable of explaining the fact that both at marriage and at certain other times, it is only particular men who are allowed access to particular women.⁵⁰

A third hypothesis suggested to account for certain customs such as the “jus primae noctis,” accorded to chiefs and particular individuals, is that “it may be a right taken forcibly by the stronger, or it may be a privilege voluntarily given to the chief man as a mark of esteem; in either case it depends upon his authority.”⁵¹ It will be generally admitted that here again no such explanation will account for the customs as met with amongst Australian tribes. In the first place, while the elder men are undoubtedly accorded certain privileges, there is not in any Australian tribe any one individual [P.103] to whom the term chief can, with strict propriety, be applied, and in the second place the privilege with which we are dealing is by no means enjoyed wholly by the elder men.⁵² Unless the leading man in any group stands in a particular relationship to the woman, he has no more right of access to her than the most insignificant man in the group.

A fourth hypothesis is suggested in connection with the right of access granted to men who have assisted the bridegroom in the capture of the woman. “In such cases the ‘jus primae noctis’ is a reward for a good turn done, or perhaps, as Mr. McLennan suggests, a common war right, exercised by the captors of the woman.”⁵³ There is undoubtedly much to be said in favour of this, but there are objections applying to it as to the second hypothesis dealt with. In the first place, so far as Australia is concerned, it is founded upon such vague statements as that quoted by Brough Smyth upon the authority of Mr. J. M. Davis.⁵⁴ Mr. Davis says, “when a young man is entitled to have a lubra, he organises a party of his friends, and they make a journey into the territories of some other tribe, and there lie in wait, generally in the evening, by a waterhole, where the lubras come for water. Such of the lubras as may be required are then pounced upon, and, if they attempt to make any resistance, are struck down insensible and dragged off. There is also this peculiarity, that in any instance where the abduction has taken place for the benefit of some one individual, each of the members of the party claims, as a right, a privilege which the intended husband has no power to refuse.”

Before it is safe, or indeed possible, to draw any conclusion from this, we require to know exactly who the men were, that is in what relationship they stood to the man whom [P.104] they were assisting. The more detailed is the information acquired in respect to the Australian tribes, the more clearly is it made apparent that on expeditions such as this, when the object in view is the obtaining of a wife, the man only asks the assistance of men who stand in certain definite relationships to himself. It does not at all follow, that, because a man forms a member of a party which captures a woman, he is therefore allowed to have access to her. In the tribes which we have investigated, marriage customs regulate the whole proceedings; the equivalent classes in the tribes are well known and, supposing for example, a party consists of men belonging to two classes, which we will call A and B, and a woman is captured belonging, say, to a third class C, which intermarries with Class A, but not with Class B, then no man in the party, if there be any such present, who belongs to Class B will be allowed, or will attempt, to have access to her. When we have merely such general statements as that quoted above from the report of Mr. Davis, it may look very much as if there did exist such a thing as “a common war-right, exercised by the captors of a woman,” but the more detailed our information becomes, the less evidence of any such “common war-right” do we find, and in the Australian tribes generally it may be regarded as very doubtful if any such right really exists. Amongst the tribes with which we are acquainted it certainly does not.

Marriage by capture is again, at the present day, whatever it may have been in the past, by no means the rule in Australian tribes, and too much stress has been laid upon this method. It is only comparatively rarely that a native goes and seizes upon some lubra in a neighbouring tribe; by far the most common method of getting a wife is by means of an arrangement made between brothers or fathers of the respective men and women, whereby a particular woman is assigned to a particular man. Marriage by capture may indeed be regarded as one of the most exceptional methods of obtaining a wife amongst the natives at the present day. We are not of course referring here to customs which may, in many tribes, be explained as indicative of a former existence of the practice; whether, in the remote past, [P.105] capture was the prevailing method can only be a matter of conjecture, but the customs at marriage in the tribes here dealt with—and it may be pointed out that these occupy a very large area in the centre of the continent, so that we are by no means dealing with an isolated example—do not seem to indicate that they owe their origin to anything like the recognition of the right of captor, as captor.

The fifth hypothesis is that of promiscuity. Certainly at the present day, so far as we can tell, there is some definite system of marriage in all Australian tribes and promiscuity, as a normal feature, does not exist. At the same time none of the hypotheses put forward by Westermarck will serve to explain the curious and very strongly marked features of the marriage customs, the essential points in which are, (1) that men have access to women who are strictly forbidden to them at ordinary times, and (2) that it is only certain definite men standing in―certain particular relationships to the woman who thus have access.

To make use of the same analogy again, it seems that in the evolution of the social organisation and customs of a savage tribe, such features as those which we are now discussing are clearly comparable to the well known rudimentary organs, which are often of great importance in understanding the phylogeny of the animal in which at some time of its development they are present. Such rudimentary structures are emblematic of parts which are perhaps only transient or, at most, imperfectly developed in the animal, but their presence shows that they were, at some past time, more highly developed and functional in ancestral stages.

It is thus perhaps permissible to speak of “rudimentary customs,” in just the same way, and with just the same significance attached to them, in which we speak of “rudimentary organs” and we may recognise in them an abbreviated record of a stage passed through in the development of the customs of the tribe amongst which they are found.⁵⁵ Such [P.106] rudimentary customs, like those which are associated with the Maypole for example, point back to a time when they were more highly developed than they are at present, and when the customs were more or less widely different from those now prevailing.

The origin of the marriage customs of the tribes now dealt with cannot possibly, so it seems to us, be explained as due either to a feeling of hospitality, or to the right of captors; nor can they be explained, as in certain cases the “jus primae noctis” can, as a right forcibly taken by the stronger from the weaker. There can be no reasonable doubt but that at one time the marriage arrangements of the Australian tribes were in a more primitive state than they are at the present day, and the customs with which we are dealing can be most simply explained as rudimentary ones serving, possibly in a very abbreviated way, to show the former existence of conditions which are no longer prevalent.

In regard to the marriage customs of the tribes now dealt with, we have the following facts. In the first place we have a group of women who are, what is called Unawa, to a group of men and vice versa, that is, all of these men and women are reciprocally marriageable. This, it may be observed, is not a matter of assumption but of actual fact. In the Arunta tribe for example a Panunga man will call the Purula whom he actually marries Unawa, but he has no name to distinguish her from all the other Purula women whom he does not actually marry, but any one of whom he might lawfully marry.⁵⁶ Further than this, while he has no actual right of access to any woman, except his own special Unawa woman or women, there are times, as, for example, during special ceremonies, or when he is visiting a distant group, when a woman is lent to him, but that woman must be one who is [P.107] Unawa to him. In other words, we have individual marriage in which a man is limited in his choice to women of a particular group, each one of whom stands to him in the relationship of a possible wife, and with whom it is lawful for him, with the consent of her special Unawa man, to have marital relations. However hospitably inclined a man may feel, he will never lend his wife to a man who does not belong to a group of men to each of whom she stands in the relationship of Unawa or possible wife. A Panunga man may lend his wife to another Panunga, but for a man of any other class to have marital relations with her would be a gross offence.

In the second place, we have certain customs concerned with marriage which are of what we may call a transient nature. Taking the Kaitish tribe as an example, we find that, when marriage actually takes place, the operation of Atna-ariltha-kuma is performed by the elder sister of the woman, and that men of the following relationship have access to her in the order named: Ipmunna, that is individuals of the same moiety of the tribe as her own; mothers' brothers' sons; tribal elder and younger brothers; and lastly, men whom she might lawfully marry, but who have no right to her when once she becomes the property of a member of the group to which they belong. By referring to the tables already given, it will be seen that these men, if we take a particular example, say a Panunga woman, are Ungalla, Uknaria, Purula and Panunga. In other words, both men of her own, and of the moiety of the tribe to which she does not belong, have access to her, but only for a very limited time, and the same holds true in the case of all the tribes examined.

It will therefore be seen that (1) for a given time a woman has marital relations with men of both moieties of the tribe, and (2) that she may during her life, when once she has become the special wife of some individual man, have lawfully, but dependent always upon the consent of the latter, marital relations with any of the group of men to each and all of whom she stands in the relationship of Unawa.

These are the actual facts with which we have to deal, and the only possible explanation of them appears to us to lie [P.108] along the following lines. We are here of course only dealing with those tribes in which descent is counted in the male line, the remaining tribe—the Urabunna—in which descent is counted in the female line, will be referred to subsequently. It appears to us that, in the present customs relating to marriage amongst this section of the Australian natives, we have clear evidence of three grades of development. We have (1) the present normal condition of individual marriage with the occasional existence of marital relations between the individual wife and other men of the same group as that to which her husband belongs, and the occasional existence also of still wider marital relations; (2) we have evidence of the existence at a prior time of actual group marriage; and (3) we have evidence of the existence at a still earlier time of still wider marital relations.

The evidence in favour of the hypothesis, that the present marriage system of such a tribe as the Arunta is based upon the former actual existence of group marriage, seems to us to be incontestable. The one most striking point in regard to marriage at the present day is that a man of one group is absolutely confined in his choice of a wife to women of a particular group, and that it is lawful for him to marry any woman of that group. When once he has secured a woman she is his private property, but he may, and often does, lend her to other men, but only if they belong to his own group. Further still, the natives have two distinct words to denote on the one hand surreptitious connection between a man and a woman who is not his own wife, but belongs to the proper group from which his wife comes, and, on the other hand, connection between a man and a woman belonging to forbidden groups. The first is called Atna-nylkna, the second is Iturka. In the face of the facts which have been brought forward, we see no possible explanation other than that the present system is derived from an earlier one in which the essential feature was actual group marriage.

When we turn to the Urabunna tribe we find the evidence still clearer. Here we have only two classes, viz., Matthurie and Kirarawa. A Matthurie man marries a Kirarawa woman, and vice versa. There is no such thing as an [P.109] individual wife. Every Matthurie man stands in the relationship of Nupa to a group of Kirarawa women, and they are, in the same way, Nupa to him. Every man has, or at least may have, one or more of these Nupa women allotted to him as wives, and to whom he has the first but not the exclusive right of access. To certain Nupa women other than his own wives he stands in the relationship of Piraungaru, and they to him. These Piraungaru are the wives of other men of his own group, just as his own wives are Piraungaru to some of the latter men, and we thus find in the Urabunna tribe that a group of women actually have marital relations with a group of men. Westermarck⁵⁷ has referred in his work to what he calls “the pretended group-marriages” of the Australians. In the case of the Urabunna there is no pretence of any kind, and exactly the same remark holds true of the neighbouring Dieri tribe.

The matter can be expressed clearly in the form of a diagram used by Mr. Fison in explaining the marriage system of the Dieri tribe:⁵⁸

It must be remembered, of course, that any one woman may be Piraungaru to a larger number of men than the two who are represented in the diagram. The relation of Piraungaru is established between any woman and men to whom she is Nupa—that is, to whom she may be lawfully married [P.110] by her Nuthie or elder brothers. If a group be camped together, and, as a matter of fact groups of individuals who are Piraungaru to one another do usually camp together, then in the case of F1, her special Nupa man M1 has the first right to her, but if he be absent then M2 and M3 have the right to her; or, if M1 be present, the two have the right to her subject to his consent, which is practically never withheld.

It is difficult to see how this system can be regarded otherwise than as an interesting stage in the transition from group to individual marriage. Each woman has one special individual who has the first right of access to her, but she has also a number of individuals of the same group who have a right to her either, if the first man be present, with his consent or, in his absence, without any restriction whatever.

In this tribe, just as in all the others, connection with women of the wrong group is a most serious offence, punishable by death or very severe treatment.

The evidence in favour of the third grade, that is the existence of wider marital relations than those indicated by the form of group marriage which has just been discussed, is naturally more indefinite and difficult to deal with. Westermarck, after having discussed at length the hypothesis of promiscuity, says:⁵⁹ “Having now examined all the groups of social phenomena adduced as evidence for the hypothesis of promiscuity, we have found that, in point of fact, they are no evidence. Not one of the customs alleged as relics of an ancient state of indiscriminate cohabitation of the sexes or ‘communal marriage’ presupposes the former existence of that state,” and further on he says:⁶⁰ “It is not, of course, impossible that, among some people, intercourse between the sexes may have been almost promiscuous. But there is not a shred of genuine evidence for the notion that promiscuity ever formed a general stage in the social history of mankind.”

It need scarcely be pointed out how totally opposed this conclusion of Mr. Westermarck's is to that arrived at by other workers, and we think there can be little doubt but that Mr. Westermarck is in error with regard to the question of group marriage amongst the Australian natives.

[P.111] We are here simply concerned with the question as to whether there is any evidence in favour of the supposition that in former times there existed wider marital relations amongst the Australian natives than is indicated in the system of group marriage, the evidence in favour of which has been dealt with. If any were forthcoming, there can be little doubt but that, a priori, we should expect to find it in the nature of what we have called a rudimentary custom, such as might be met with at the actual time of marriage, that is, when a woman is handed over to become the possession of one man. None of the hypotheses brought forward by Westermarck to explain the customs on this occasion can, we think, be considered as at all satisfactory in regard to those of the tribes with which we are dealing. The one striking feature of the marriage customs is that particular men representative of the woman's own moiety, and of the half of the tribe to which she does not belong, have access to her, and always in a particular order, according to which those who, in the present state of the tribe, have lawfully the right to her come last.

These customs, together with the one already dealt with, referring to a general intercourse during the performance of certain corrobborees are, it appears to us, only capable of any satisfactory explanation on the hypothesis that they indicate the temporary recognition of certain general rights which existed in the time prior to that of the form of group marriage of which we have such clear traces yet lingering amongst the tribes. We do not mean that they afford direct evidence of the former existence of actual promiscuity, but they do afford evidence leading in that direction, and they certainly point back to a time when there existed wider marital relations than obtain at the present day—wider, in fact, than those which are shown in the form of group marriage from which the present system is derived. On no other hypothesis yet advanced do the customs connected with marriage, which are so consistent in their general nature and leading features from tribe to tribe, appear to us to be capable of satisfactory explanation.

[P.112]

Chapter IV The Totems

Every individual is born into some totem—Variations in the significance of the totems in different parts of Australia—Totems of the Urabunna tribe—The child takes the mother's totem—Totems of the Arunta tribe—No relationship of necessity between the totem name of the child and that of the father and mother—Marriage not regulated by totem—Examples of totem names as they exist in particular families—Though differing much from one another in many points, there is a fundamental unity in customs, sufficient to indicate the origin of all Australian tribes from ancestors who practised certain customs which have been developed along different lines in different localities—Ceremonies of the Engwura serving to show the way in which each individual acquires his or her totemic name—The Alcheringa times—The ancestral members of certain totemic groups restricted wholly, or almost so, to members of one moiety of the tribe—The wanderings of certain groups of Alcheringa ancestors, each of whom carried one or more sacred Churinga, with each of which is associated the spirit part of an individual—Where the Churinga are deposited there local totem centres are formed, the native name of which is Oknanikilla—Each Oknanikilla is associated with one totem, and when a child is born it is one of the spirit individuals resident at a particular spot which goes inside a woman, and therefore its totem is the totem of the spirits associated with that spot—Examples of how a child gets its totemic name—Totem never changes, but the class may—The totems are local in their distribution.

EVERY individual of the tribes with which we are dealing is born into some totem—that is, he or she belongs to a group of persons each one of whom bears the name of, and is especially associated with, some natural object. The latter is usually an animal or plant; but in addition to those of living things, there are also such totem names as wind, sun, water, or cloud—in fact there is scarcely an object, animate or inanimate, to be found in the country occupied by the natives which does not gives its name to some totemic group of individuals.

Much has been written with regard to the totems of the Australian natives since the time when Grey first described them under the name of Kobong, which, it must be remarked, is only of local application in certain parts of the west, the [P.113] word being entirely unknown over the greater part of the continent. As might have been expected, when we take into account the vast area of land over which the Australian tribes are spread, and the isolation by physical barriers of those occupying the Central area from the tribes living on the east and west, there have arisen, in respect to the totemic system, variations of so important a character that it is by no means possible to describe that which is found in any one tribe or group of tribes and regard it as typical of Australian natives generally. The Arunta, Ilpirra and Luritcha tribes, and there is little doubt but that the same holds true of other tribes to the north, such as the Waagai, Iliaura, Bingongina, Walpari, and Warramunga, differ in important respects from the tribes which either now do, or formerly did, inhabit the east and south-eastern parts of the continent, and to whom nearly all our knowledge of totems in Australia has been confined. Between these central and the southern and south-eastern tribes a sharp line can be drawn, so far as their totemic systems are concerned; indeed it looks very much as if somewhere a little to the north-west of Lake Eyre we had a meeting-place of two sets of tribes, which migrated southwards, following roughly parallel courses, one across the centre of the continent, while the other followed down the course of the main streams on the east, and then turned slightly northward on the west side of Lake Eyre; or, possibly, in their southern wanderings, part of this eastern group spread round the north, and part round the south end of the lake (Fig. 1).

We find, so far as their organisation is concerned, a sharply marked line of difference between the Urabunna tribe, the members of which are spread over the country which lies to the west and north-west of Lake Eyre, and the Arunta tribe, which adjoins their northern boundary. The Urabunna tribe is associated with the migration along the eastern side, while the Arunta is the most southern of the Central tribes.

In the Urabunna and the adjoining Dieri tribe, as well as in those which spread northwards on the east side of Lake Eyre towards the borders of Queensland, and in others who lived along the shores of Spencer Gulf and along the southern [P.114] coast, we find that descent is counted in the female line. In the Urabunna, for example, we find that all the members of the tribe are divided into two classes, which are called respectively Matthurie and Kirarawa, and each of these again contains a certain number of totems, or, as the natives call them, Thunthunie. The same totem name is only to be found in one or other of the two classes, but not in both. Thus, for example, among the Matthurie we find the following totems—Inyarrie (wild duck), Wutnimmera (green cicada), Matla (dingo), Waragutie (emu), Kalathura (wild turkey), Guti (black swan); whilst amongst the Kirarawa are such totems as Kurara (cloud), Wabma (carpet snake), Kapirie (lace lizard), Urantha (pelican), Kutnichilie (water-hen), Wakala (crow).⁶¹

Now not only must a Matthurie man take as wife a Kirarawa woman, but he must only take one of some particular totem.⁶² Thus a wild duck Matthurie man marries a snake Kirarawa woman, a cicada marries a crow, a dingo a water-hen, an emu a rat, a wild turkey a cloud, and a swan a pelican. Every child, male or female, of a wild duck Matthurie man belongs to the class Kirarawa, and to the totem snake to which his mother belonged. Thus in every family the father belongs to one class and totem, while the mother and all the children belong to another. We have already dealt at length with certain aspects of the social organisation of the Urabunna tribe, and enough has now been said to show that it is a typical example of one of the many Australian tribes in which the totem of the child is simply determined by that of the mother.

Passing northwards from the Urabunna into the Arunta tribe, we are brought into contact with a very different organisation, but with one which, in regard to the class names, is typical of tribes which occupy an area extending north and south for some 800 miles, and east and west for perhaps [P.115] between 200 and 300. We find also essentially the same system in tribes inhabiting other parts of Australia, such as the Turribul, living on the Maryborough river in Queensland.⁶³ Without entering here into details, which will be fully explained subsequently, we may say that, so far as the class is concerned, descent is counted in the male line. The totem names are, however, at first sight decidedly perplexing. Just as in the Urabunna tribe, every individual has his or her totem name. In the first place, however, no one totem is confined to the members of a particulars class or subclass; in the second place the child's totem will sometimes be found to be the same as that of the father, sometimes the same as that of the mother, and not infrequently it will be different from that of either parent; and in the third place there is no definite relationship between the totem of the father and mother, such as exists in the Urabunna and many other Australian tribes—in fact perhaps in the majority of the latter. You may, for example, examine at first a family in which the father is a witchetty grub and the mother a wild cat, and you may find, supposing there be two children, that they are both witchetty grubs. In the next family examined perhaps both parents will be witchetty grubs, and of two children one may belong to the same totem, and the other may be an emu; another family will show the father to be, say, an emu, the mother a plum-tree, and of their children one may be a witchetty grub, another a lizard, and so on, the totem names being apparently mixed up in the greatest confusion possible.

We give below the actual totem names of five families, selected at random, who are now living in the northern section of the Arunta tribe, and these may be taken as accurately representative of the totem names found in various families throughout the tribe. After making very numerous and as careful inquiries as possible, always directly from the natives concerned, we can say that every family shows the same features as these particular examples do with regard to the totems, the names of the latter varying, of course, from family to family and in different parts of the country, certain [P.116] totems predominating in some, and others in other parts. You may, for example, find yourself in one district of more or less limited area and find one totem largely represented; travelling out of that district, you may meet but rarely with that particular totem until you come into another and perhaps distant part, where—it may be 40 or 50 miles away—it again becomes the principal one. The reason for, or rather the explanation of, this curious local distribution of totem names, as given by the natives, will be seen presently.

Family 1. Father, little hawk. Wife No. 1, rat; daughter, witchetty grub. Wife No. 2, kangaroo; no children. Wife No. 3, lizard; two daughters, one emu, the other water.
Family 2. Father, eagle-hawk. Wife No. 1, Hakea flower; no children. Wife No. 2, Hakea flower; four sons, who are respectively witchetty grub, emu, eagle-hawk, elonka; two daughters, both witchetty grubs.
Family 3. Father, witchetty grub. Wife No. 1, lizard; two sons, one lizard, the other witchetty grub. Wife No. 2, lizard.
Family 4. Father, emu. Wife, munyeru; two sons, one kangaroo, the other, wild cat; one daughter, lizard.
Family 5. Father, witchetty grub. Wife, witchetty grub; two sons, one, kangaroo, the other, witchetty grub; one daughter, witchetty grub.

Taking these as typical examples of what is found throughout the whole tribe, we can see that while, as already stated, marriages are strictly regulated by class rules, the question of totem has nothing to do with the matter either so far as making it obligatory for a man of one totem to marry a woman of another particular one, or so far as the totem of the children is concerned. The totem name of the child does not of necessity follow either that of the father or that of the mother, but it may correspond to one or both of them. Whether there ever was a time when, in the Arunta and other neighbouring tribes, marriage was regulated by totem it is difficult to say. At the present day it is not, nor can we find any evidence in the full and numerous traditions relating to the doings of their supposed ancestors which affords indications of a time when, as in the Urabunna tribe, a man might only marry a woman of a totem different from [P.117] his own. In their curious totem regulations, the Arunta and Ilpirra tribes agree, as we know from personal observation, while we have reason to believe that large and important tribes living to the north of them—viz. the Kaitish, Warramunga, Waagai, Iliaura, Bingongina and Walpari—are in accord with them on all important points. The difference in this respect between the tribes whose customs and organisation are now described, and those of other tribes which have been dealt with by able and careful investigators, such as Grey, Fison, Howitt, Roth and others, will serve to show that various tribes and groups of tribes, starting doubtless from a common basis, but isolated from one another during long periods of time by physical barriers, have developed along different lines. Except, perhaps, in the extreme north and north-east, Australia has had for long ages no intercourse with outside peoples, and such as it has had has only affected a very small and insignificant coastal fringe of the continent, and even there the influence has been but very slight. What we have to deal with is a great continental area, peopled most probably by men who entered from the north and brought with them certain customs. We are not here concerned with the difficult question of exactly where the ancestors of the present Australian natives came from. The most striking fact in regard to them at the present day is that over the whole continent, so far as is known, we can detect a community of customs and social organisation sufficient to show that all the tribes inhabiting various parts are the offspring of ancestors who, prior to their migrating in various directions across the continent, and thus giving rise to groups separated to a great extent from one another by physical barriers, already practised certain customs and had the germs of an organisation which has been developed along different lines in different localities.

The class and totem systems, variously modified as we now find them in different tribes, can only be adequately accounted for on the hypothesis that, when the ancestors of the present natives reached the country, they spread over it in various directions, separated into local groups, and developed, without the stimulus derived from contact with outside [P.118] peoples, along various lines, each group retaining features in its customs and organisation such as can only be explained by supposing them all to have had a common ancestry.⁶⁴

However, to return to the totems of the Arunta. It was while watching and questioning closely the natives during the performance of the Engwura ceremony—a description of which will be found in a later chapter—that we were able to find out the way in which the totem names of the individuals originate and to gain an insight into the true nature of their totemic system.

The Engwura ceremony, which forms the last of the initiatory rites through which the Arunta native must pass before he becomes what is called Urliara, or a fully developed native, admitted to all the most sacred secrets of the tribe, consisted in reality of a long series of ceremonies, the enacting of which occupied in all more than four months. Those with which we are here concerned were a large number, between sixty and seventy altogether, which were connected with the totems and were performed under the direction of the old men, who instructed the younger men both how to perform them and what they represented.

The native name for these ceremonies is Quabara,⁶⁵ and each one is known as a Quabara of a certain totem associated with a particular spot. Thus we have, for example, the Quabara Unjiamba of Ooraminna, which means a ceremony of the Unjiamba or Hakea flower totem of a place called Ooraminna; the Quabara Achilpa of Urapitchera, which means a ceremony of the wild cat (a species of Dasyurus) [P.119] totem of a place called Urapitchera on the Finke River; the Quabara Okira of Idracowra, which means a ceremony of the kangaroo totem of a place called Idracowra on the Finke River, or, to speak more correctly, of a special spot marked by the presence of a great upstanding column of sandstone, called by white men Chamber's pillar, of the native name for which, Idracowra is a corruption; the Quabara Unchichera of Imanda, which means a ceremony of the frog totem of a spot called by the natives Imanda, and by the white men Bad Crossing on the Hugh River. Each ceremony was thus concerned with a special totem, and not only this, but with a special division of a totem belonging to a definite locality, and, further, each ceremony was frequently, but by no means always, in the possession of, and presided over by, an old man of the totem and locality with which it was concerned. It will shortly be seen that the totems are strictly local, but that we have what may be called local centres of any one totem in various districts of the wide area over which the Arunta tribe is scattered. For our present purpose, which is the explanation of the way in which each individual gets his or her totemic name, the following general account will suffice.

The whole past history of the tribe may be said to be bound up with these totemic ceremonies, each of which is concerned with the doings of certain mythical ancestors who are supposed to have lived in the dim past, to which the natives give the name of the “Alcheringa.”

In the Alcheringa lived ancestors who, in the native mind, are so intimately associated with the animals or plants the name of which they bear that an Alcheringa man of, say, the kangaroo totem may sometimes be spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or as a kangaroo-man. The identity of the human individual is often sunk in that of the animal or plant from which he is supposed to have originated. It is useless to try and get further back than the Alcheringa; the history of the tribe as known to the natives commences then.

Going back to this far-away time, we find ourselves in the midst of semi-human creatures endowed with powers not possessed by their living descendants and inhabiting the same [P.120] country which is now inhabited by the tribe, but which was then devoid of many of its most marked features, the origin of which, such as the gaps and gorges in the Macdonnell Ranges, is attributed to these mythical Alcheringa ancestors.

These Alcheringa men and woman are represented in tradition as collected together in companies, each of which consisted of a certain number of individuals belonging to one particular totem. Thus, for example, the ceremonies of the Engwura dealt with four separate groups of Achilpa or wild cat men.

Whilst every now and then we come across traditions, according to which, as in the case of the Achilpa, the totem is common to all classes, we always find that in each totem one moiety⁶⁶ of the tribe predominates, and that, according to tradition, many of the groups of ancestral individuals consisted originally of men or women or of both men and women who all belonged to one moiety. Thus in the case of certain Okira or kangaroo groups we find only Kumara and Purula; in certain Udnirringita or witchetty grub groups we find only Bulthara and Panunga; in certain Achilpa or wild cat a predominance of Kumara and Purula, with a smaller number of Bulthara and Panunga.

At the present day no totem is confined to either moiety of the tribe, but in each local centre we always find a great predominance of one moiety, as for example at Alice Springs, the most important centre of the witchetty grubs, where, amongst forty individuals, thirty-five belong to the Bulthara and Panunga, and five only to the other moiety of the tribe.

These traditions with regard to the way in which the Alcheringa ancestors were distributed into companies, the members of which bore the same totem name and belonged, as a general rule, to the same moiety of the tribe, are of considerable importance when we come to consider the conditions which now obtain with regard to totems. It is not without importance to notice that the traditions of the tribe point back to a time when, for the most part, the members of [P.121] any particular totem were confined to one moiety of the tribe, in face of the fact that at the present day it seems to be a characteristic feature of many tribes—such as the Urabunna, which are in a less highly developed state than the Arunta, Ilpirra and certain other tribes of Central Australia—that the totems are strictly confined to one or other of the two moieties of the tribe, and that they regulate marriage. At the same time it may again be pointed out that the totems in no way regulate marriage in the tribes mentioned, and, further still, we can find no evidence in any of the traditions, numerous and detailed as they are, of a time when marriage in these tribes was ever regulated by the totems.

If now we turn to the traditions and examine those relating to certain totems which may be taken as illustrative of the whole series, we find that they are concerned almost entirely with the way in which what we may call the Alcheringa members of the various totems came to be located in various spots scattered over the country now occupied by the tribe the members of which are regarded as their descendants, or, to speak more precisely, as their reincarnations. We will take as examples the following totems—Achilpa or wild cat, Unjiamba or Hakea flower, Unchichera or frog, and Udnirringita or witchetty grub.⁶⁷

In the Alcheringa there appear to have been four companies of wild cat men and women who, tradition says, appeared first in the southern part of the country. It has been already pointed out that, in the native mind, the ideas of the human and animal nature of these individuals are very closely associated together. Starting from the south out to the east of Charlotte Waters, one of these companies, consisting in this case of Bulthara and Panunga individuals, marched northwards, keeping as they did so considerably to the east of the River Finke. A second and larger party, consisting of Purula and Kumara individuals, came from the south-west and, at a place not far from Henbury on the Finke River, divided into two parties. One of them crossed the Finke and went on northwards to the Macdonnell Ranges, which were traversed [P.122] a little to the east of Alice Springs, and then passed on northwards. The other half, forming the third party, followed up the Finke for some distance, crossing it at a spot now called Running Waters, after which the Macdonnell Ranges were traversed some twenty or twenty-five miles to the west of Alice Springs, and then the party passed on to the north in the direction of Central Mount Stuart. The fourth party, consisting of Purula and Kumara individuals, started from far away to the south-east, and travelled northwards, crossing the Range at Mount Sonder, and continued its course northwards, so says tradition, until it reached the country of the salt water.

The principal traditions with regard to the Unjiamba or Hakea flower totem refer to the wanderings of certain women. In one account, two women of this totem are described as coming from a place about 35 miles to the north of Alice Springs, where they had a sacred pole or Nurtunja.⁶⁸ Starting southwards, they travelled first of all underground, and came out at a place called Arapera. Here they spent their time eating Unjiamba. Then leaving here they took their sacred pole or Nurtunja to pieces and travelled further on until they came to Ooraminna, in the Macdonnell Ranges, where there is a special water-hole close beside which they sat down and died, and two great stones arose to mark the exact spot where they died. In their journey these two women followed close by the track taken by one of the Achilpa parties, but did not actually come into contact with the latter, which was travelling in the opposite direction.

In addition to these traditions of the wanderings of various companies of men and women belonging to different totems, we meet with others which refer to the origin of special individuals, or groups of individuals, who did not wander about but lived and died where they sprang up. Thus, for example, an Inarlinga or “porcupine” (Echidna) man is supposed to have arisen near to Stuart's waterhole on the Hugh River, [P.123] while at the Emily Gap, near to Alice Springs, tradition says that certain witchetty grubs became transformed into witchetty men, who formed a strong group here, and who were afterwards joined by others of the same totem, who marched over the country to the Gap.

Each of these Alcheringa ancestors is represented as carrying about with him, or her, one or more of the sacred stones, which are called by the Arunta natives Churinga,⁶⁹ and each of these Churinga is intimately associated with the idea of the spirit part of some individual. Either where they originated and stayed, as in the case of certain of the witchetty grub people, or else where, during their wanderings, they camped for a time, there were formed what the natives call Oknanikilla, each one of which is in reality a local totem centre. At each of these spots, and they are all well known to the old men, who pass the knowledge on from generation to generation, a certain number of the Alcheringa ancestors went into the ground, each one carrying his Churinga with him. His body died, but some natural feature, such as a rock or tree, arose to mark the spot, while his spirit part remained in the Churinga. At the same time many of the Churinga which they carried with them, and each one of which had associated with it a spirit individual, were placed in the ground, some natural object again marking the spot. The result is that, as we follow their wanderings, we find that the whole country is dotted over with Oknanikilla, or local totem centres, at each of which are deposited a number of Churinga, with spirit individuals associated with them. Each Oknanikilla is, of course, connected with one totem. In one part we have a definite locality, with its group of wild cat spirit individuals; in another, a group of emu; in another, a group of frog, and so on through the various totems; and it is this idea of spirit individuals associated with Churinga and resident in certain definite spots that lies at the root of the present totemic system of the Arunta tribe.

As we have said, the exact spot at which a Churinga was [P.124] deposited was always marked by some natural object, such as a tree or rock, and in this the spirit is supposed to especially take up its abode, and it is called the spirit's Nanja.⁷⁰

We may take the following as a typical example of how each man and woman gains a totem name. Close to Alice Springs is a large and important witchetty grub totem centre or Oknanikilla. Here there were deposited in the Alcheringa a large number of Churinga carried by witchetty grub men and women. A large number of prominent rocks and boulders and certain ancient gum-trees along the sides of a picturesque gap in the ranges, are the Nanja trees and rocks of these spirits, which, so long as they remain in spirit form, they usually frequent. If a woman conceives a child after having been near to this gap, it is one of these spirit individuals which has entered her body, and therefore, quite irrespective of what the mother's or father's totem may chance to be, that child, when born, must of necessity be of the witchetty grub totem; it is, in fact, nothing else but the reincarnation of one of the witchetty grub people of the Alcheringa. Suppose, for example, to take a particular and actual instance, an emu woman from another locality comes to Alice Springs, and whilst there becomes aware that she has conceived a child, and then returns to her own locality before the child is born, that child, though it may be born in an emu locality, is an Udnirringita or witchetty grub. It must be, the natives say, because it entered the mother at Alice Springs, where there are only witchetty grub spirit individuals. Had it entered her body within the limits of her own emu locality, it would as inevitably have been an emu. To take another example, quite recently the lubra or wife of a witchetty grub man, she belonging to the same totem, conceived a child while on a visit to a neighbouring Quatcha or water locality, which lies away to the east of Alice Springs, that child's totem is water; or, again, an Alice Springs woman, when asked by us as to why her child was a witchetty grub (in this instance belonging to the same totem as both of its parents), told us that one day she was taking a drink [P.125] of water near to the gap in the Ranges where the spirits dwell when suddenly she heard a child's voice crying out, “Mia, mia!”—the native term for relationship which includes that of mother. Not being anxious to have a child, she ran away as fast as she could, but to no purpose; she was fat and well favoured, and such women the spirit children prefer; one of them had gone inside her, and of course it was born a witchetty grub.⁷¹

The natives are quite clear upon this point. The spirit children are supposed to have a strong predilection for fat women, and prefer to choose such for their mothers, even at the risk of being born into the wrong class. We are acquainted with special, but somewhat rare cases, in which a living man is regarded as the reincarnation of an Alcheringa ancestor whose class was not the same as that of his living representative. At Alice Springs there is a man who is an Uknaria belonging to the lizard totem, and is regarded as the reincarnation of a celebrated Purula lizard man of the Alcheringa. The spirit child deliberately, so the natives say, chose to go into a Kumara instead of into a Bulthara woman, and so the man was born Uknaria instead of Purula. Though the class was changed, the totem could not possibly be.

Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely; but these, which may be taken as typical ones, will serve to show that, though at first sight puzzling, yet in reality the totem name follows a very definite system, if once we grant the premises firmly believed in by the Arunta native.

One point of some interest is brought out by this inquiry into the origin of the totem names, and that is that, though the great majority of any one totem belong to one moiety of the tribe, yet there may be, and in fact always are, a certain number of members who belong to the other moiety. Just as in the Alcheringa, all the witchetty grub men were Bulthara and Panunga, so at the present day are the great majority of their descendants who inhabit the local areas in which the mythical ancestors formed witchetty totem centres. So, in [P.126] the same way, all the Alcheringa emu ancestors were Purula and Kumara, as now are the great majority of their descendants, but, owing to the system according to which totem names are acquired, it is always possible for a man to be, say, a Purula or a Kumara and yet a witchetty, or, on the other hand, a Bulthara or a Panunga, and yet an emu.

Two things are essential—first a child must belong to the totem of the spot at which the mother believes that it was conceived, and, second, it must belong to the moiety of the tribe to which its father belongs. Its totem never changes, but its class may. Once born into a totem, no matter what his class may be, a man, when initiated, may witness and take part in all the sacred ceremonies connected with the totem, but, unless he belong to the predominant moiety, he will never, or only in extremely rare cases, become the head man or Alatunja of any local group of the totem. His only chance of becoming Alatunja is by the death of every member of the group who belongs to the moiety to which the Alcheringa men belonged.

What has gone before will serve to show what we mean by speaking of the totems as being local in their distribution. The whole district occupied by the Arunta, and the same holds true of the Ilpirra and Kaitish tribes, can be mapped out into a large number of areas of various sizes, some of which are actually only a few square yards in extent, while others occupy many square miles, and each of which centres in one or more spots, for which the native name is Oknanikilla—a term which may be best rendered by the phrase “local totem centre.” Each of these represents a spot where Alcheringa ancestors either originated or where they camped during their wanderings, and where some of them went down into the ground with their Churinga, or where they deposited Churinga. In any case the Churinga remained there, each one associated with a spirit individual, and from these have sprung, and still continue to spring, actual men and women who of necessity bear the totem name of the Churinga from which they come.

We shall, later on, deal in greater detail with the traditions which are concerned with the wanderings of the ancestors of [P.127] the local totem groups, and also with certain points of importance, such as the various ceremonies connected with the totems and the relationship existing between the individual and his totem. It will be evident from the general account already given that the totemic system of the Arunta and other Central Australian tribes differs in important respects from those of other tribes which have hitherto been described. It is based upon the idea of the reincarnation of Alcheringa ancestors, who were the actual transformations of animals and plants, or of such inanimate objects as clouds or water, fire, wind, sun, moon and stars. To the Australian native there is no difficulty in the assumption that an animal or a plant could be transformed directly into a human being, or that the spirit part which he supposes it to possess, just as he does in his own case, could remain, on the death of the animal, associated with such an object as a Churinga, and at some future time arise in the form of a human being.

The account which the Arunta native gives of the origin of the totemic names of the various members of the tribe is to him a perfectly feasible one. What gave rise in the first instance to the association of particular men with particular animals and plants it does not seem possible to say. The Arunta man accounts for it by creating a series of myths, according to which he is the direct descendant of the animal or plant, and weaves in and around these myths details of the most circumstantial nature.

We shall have to return to the question of the totems after certain of these myths of the Alcheringa have been related; meanwhile it may be said that, though different in certain respects from that of other Australian tribes, yet the totemic system of the Arunta shows us the one essential feature common to all totemic systems, and that is the intimate association between the individual and the material object, the name of which he bears.

[P.128]

Chapter V The Churinga or Bull Roarers of the Arunta and Other Tribes

General description of Churinga—Mystery attached to their use—Finding of the Churinga when the child is born—The Nanja tree or stone—Relationship between an individual and his Nanja—The Ertnatulunga or sacred storehouse; its sanctity—The earliest rudiment of the idea of a city of refuge—The spirit part placed in the Churinga undergoes reincarnation—The Tundun in the case of the Jeraeil of the Kurnai tribe is associated with a great ancestor—No association between the spirit part of the living man and his Churinga, but between the Arumburinga, the spirit double of the man, and the Churinga—The giving of a sacred or Churinga name—Reticence with regard to secret names—The showing of his Churinga Nanja to a man—Examination of the Churinga at the Ertnatulunga—Ceremony concerned with telling a man his Churinga name—Exact contents of an Ertnatulunga—The term “message-stick” misleading as applied to the Churinga—Descriptions of particular Churinga, and explanation of the designs upon them—Resemblance between the initiation rites and Churinga of the Central tribes and those of Central Queensland, described by Mr. Roth—Absence of stone Churinga amongst southern groups—Ownership of the Churinga—Extinction and subsequent resuscitation of a local totemic group—The Churinga taken charge of by another group—Examples of extinction of local totemic groups—The Churinga are under the charge of the Alatunja—Inheritance of Churinga of men and women—Various forms of Churinga—The Churinga of the Kaitish and Waagai tribes—The borrowing and returning of Churinga; ceremonies attendant upon the same.

CHURINGA is the name given by the Arunta natives to certain sacred objects which, on penalty of death or very severe punishment, such as blinding by means of a fire-stick, are never allowed to be seen by women or uninitiated men. The term is applied, as we shall see later, to various objects associated with the totems, but of these the greater number belong to that class of rounded, oval or elongate, flattened stones and slabs of wood of very various sizes, to the smaller ones of which the name of bull-roarer is commonly applied.

The importance and use of these in various ceremonies such as those attendant upon initiation of the young men, was [P.129] [P.130] first shown in Australia by Messrs. Howitt and Fison, and since then they have been repeatedly referred to by other writers.

Amongst the aborigines of the Centre, as indeed everywhere else where they are found, considerable mystery is attached to their use—a mystery which has probably had a large part of its origin in the desire of the men to impress the women of the tribe with an idea of the supremacy and superior power of the male sex. From time immemorial myths and superstitions have grown up around them, until now it is difficult to say how far each individual believes in what, if the expression may be allowed, he must know to be more or less of a fraud, but in which he implicitly thinks that the other natives believe.

Whilst living in close intercourse with the natives, spending the days and nights amongst them in their camps while they were preparing for and then enacting their most sacred ceremonies, and talking to them day after day, collectively and individually, we were constantly impressed with the idea, as probably many others have been before, that one blackfellow will often tell you that he can and does do something magical, whilst all the time he is perfectly well aware that he cannot, and yet firmly believes that some other man can really do it. In order that his fellows may not be considered in this respect as superior to himself he is obliged to resort to what is really a fraud, but in course of time he may even come to lose sight of the fact that it is a fraud which he is practising upon himself and his fellows. At all events, and especially in connection with the Churinga, there are amongst the Australian natives beliefs which can have had no origin in fact, but which have gradually grown up until now they are implicitly held. It is necessary to realise this aspect of the native mind in order to understand the influence which some of their oldest and most sacred beliefs and customs have upon their lives.

We may say at once that the Churinga are one and all connected with the totems, and that the word signifies a sacred object, sacred because it is thus associated with the totems and may never be seen except upon very rare occasions, [P.131] [P.132] and then only in the distance and indistinctly by women and uninitiated men.

In the last chapter we described the association between men of the Alcheringa and their Churinga. We saw that each spirit individual was closely bound up with his Churinga, which he carried with him as he wandered about his ancestral home, the Oknanikilla, or rested on the Nanja tree or stone which he is supposed especially to frequent.

The tradition of the natives is that when the spirit child goes inside a woman the Churinga is dropped. When the child is born the mother tells the father the position of the tree or rock near to which she supposes the child to have entered her, and he, together with one or two of the older men, who are close relatives of the man, and of whom the father of the latter is usually one, and also an elder brother of the father, goes to the locality, at once if it be near at hand, or when opportunity offers if it be distant, and searches for the dropped Churinga. The latter is usually, but not always, supposed to be a stone one marked with a device peculiar to the totem of the spirit child and therefore of the newly-born one. Sometimes it is found, sometimes it is not. In the former case, which is stated to occur often, we must suppose that some old man—it is most often the Arunga or paternal grandfather who finds it—has provided himself with one for the occasion, which is quite possible, as Churinga belonging to their own totem are not infrequently carried about by the old men, who obtain them from the sacred storehouse in which they are kept. We questioned native after native on this subject—some of them had actually found such stones—but there was no shaking them in the firm belief that such a Churinga was always dropped by the spirit child whether it was found or not. If it cannot be found then they proceed to make a wooden one from the Mulga or other hard wood tree nearest to the Nanja, and to carve on it some device or brand peculiar to the totem.

Ever afterwards the Nanja tree or stone of the spirit is the Nanja of the child, and the Churinga is its Churinga nanja.

As might have been expected, there is a definite relationship supposed to exist between an individual and his Nanja [P.133] tree or stone. Whilst the belief is by no means general at the present time, there is at least one definite case known to us in which a blackfellow earnestly requested a white man not to cut down a particular tree because it was his Nanja tree, and he feared that if cut down some evil would befall him. Very possibly in times past this feeling was more widely prevalent than it is now. At the present time the special association between a man and his Nanja tree lies in the fact that every animal upon that tree is ekirinja or tabu to him. If an opossum or a bird be in the tree it is sacred and must not on any account be touched. There is no special ceremony performed by the individual in reference to his Nanja tree, but it is one in which he is supposed to have a special interest as having been the home of the spirit whose reincarnation he is.

In each Oknanikilla or local totem centre, there is a spot called by the natives the Ertnatulunga. This is, in reality, a sacred storehouse, which usually has the form of a small cave or crevice in some unfrequented spot amongst the rough hills and ranges which abound in the area occupied by the tribe. The entrance is carefully blocked up with stones so naturally arranged as not to arouse suspicion of the fact that they conceal from view the most sacred possessions of the tribe. In this, often carefully tied up in bundles, are numbers of the Churinga, and in one or other of these storehouses every member of the tribe, men and women alike, is represented by his or her Churinga nanja. When, after the birth of a child, one of the latter is found, or made, it is handed over to the headman of the local totem group within the district occupied by which the child was conceived, and is by him deposited in the Ertnatulunga.

The spot at which the child was born and brought up, and at which it will spend probably the greater part of its life, has nothing whatever to do with determining the resting place of the Churinga nanja. That goes naturally to the storehouse of the locality from which the spirit child came—that is to the spot where the Churinga was deposited in the Alcheringa. In the case, for example, which has already been quoted, in which a witchetty woman conceived a child in an emu [P.134] locality, twelve miles to the north of Alice Springs, the latter place being the woman's home, the child was born at the latter and lives there, but the Churinga nanja was found at the place of conception and is now deposited in the store-house of that group.

So far as the possession of Churinga nanja is concerned, men and women are alike, each possesses one or, as will be seen later, very rarely more than one. Whilst, however, there comes a time when each man is allowed to see and handle his, the women not only may never see them but, except in the case of the very old women, they are unaware of the existence of any such objects. Into the mysteries of the Ertnatulunga and its contents no woman dare pry at risk of death. The position of the Ertnatulunga—not their exact position, but their locality—is known to the women, who are obliged to go long distances round in order to avoid going anywhere near to them. One of these storehouses was on the side of a deep gap which, for several miles in either direction, is the only way of passing through the ranges which lie to the south of Alice Springs, and, until the advent of the white man, no woman was ever allowed to walk through the gap, but, if she wished to traverse the ranges, she had to climb the steep declivities in order to pass across, and this also at some distance from the gap. Even at the present day, unless in the company of a white man, she carefully avoids the side on which lies the cleft which serves as a store-house for Churinga, and it is only the presence of white men in this locality which has resulted in women being allowed to walk through the gap.

The immediate surroundings of one of these Ertnatulunga is a kind of haven of refuge for wild animals; once they come close to one of these they are safe, because any animal—emu or kangaroo or wallaby—which, when pursued, ran by instinct or by chance towards the Ertnatulunga was, when once it came close to it, tabu and safe from the spear of the pursuing native. Even the plants in the immediate vicinity of the spot are never touched or interfered with in any way.

The sanctity of the Ertnatulunga may be understood when it is remembered that it contains the Churinga, which are [P.135] associated not only with the living members of the tribe, but also with the dead ones. Indeed, many of the Churinga are those of special men of the Alcheringa, who, as tradition relates, wandered about and descended at these spots into the earth where their Churinga, the very ones which are now within the storehouse, remained associated with their spirit part. Each Churinga is so closely bound up with the spirit individual that it is regarded as its representative in the Ertnatulunga, and those of dead men are supposed to be endowed with the attributes of their owner and to actually impart these to the person who, for the time being, may, as when a fight takes place, be fortunate enough to carry it about with him.⁷² The Churinga is supposed to endow the possessor with courage and accuracy of aim, and also to deprive his opponent of these qualities. So firm is their belief in this that if two men were fighting and one of them knew that the other carried a Churinga whilst he did not, he would certainly lose heart at once and without doubt be beaten.

The Ertnatulunga may be regarded as the early rudiment of a city or house of refuge. Everything in its immediate vicinity is sacred and must on no account be hurt; a man who was being pursued by others would not be touched so long as he remained at this spot. During the Engwura ceremony, when temporary storehouses were made to hold the large number of Churinga which were brought in to the ceremonial ground, and when, as always happens when men from different parts are assembled in large number, there arose any small quarrel, no display of arms was allowed anywhere near to the stores of Churinga. If the men wanted to quarrel they had to go right away from the Churinga stores.

The loss of Churinga is the most serious evil which could befall a group, but, though it might have been expected that [P.136] stealing them would have been resorted to in times of fighting between different groups, yet this does not seem to take place. This is probably to be accounted for in various ways. In the first place the exact spot, which is under the charge primarily of the headman of the group and of the older men associated with him, is only known to the initiated men of the group, all of whom are equally and deeply interested in keeping the secret. Beyond this any interference by a stranger would surely result sooner or later in the death of the latter. The knowledge also that retaliation of a similar kind would inevitably follow must have acted as a strong deterrent on any individual or group who was at all anxious to interfere with other peoples' Churinga. Whatever the reasons for it may be the fact remains that on the very few occasions on which we could find out that the Ertnatulunga had been robbed the aggressors were white men. On each occasion also the natives have attempted to kill the member of the tribe who had shown the spot to the white men, and would certainly have been successful in so doing but for the protection afforded to the guide by the latter. In the c