120 NATURAL SCIENCE [August 



over two or three miles of scrubby, stony ground, carrying heavy 

 full-plate camera and notebook to get an accurate record of what 

 was going on. In all, 200 photographs were taken under extremely 

 trying conditions. It is little wonder that the many friends of Pro- 

 fessor Spencer were rather shocked to see him looking so parched 

 and sun-dried on his return to civilisation. 



Initiation Rites. — The Arunta tribe, like several other Aus- 

 tralian tribes, is divided into sections or classes, which are four 

 in number. In their details the relationships of these classes are 

 very complicated, and are fixed by definite rules which are carefully 

 observed by the blacks. It may be briefly stated that a man must 

 marry out of his own class, while the children belong to yet a third 

 class, certain members of which class are then his tribal brothers 

 and sisters. 



There are four grades of initiatory ceremonies which an Arunta 

 man must go through before he becomes a full member of the tribe. 

 Up to about ten years the boy lives in the women's camp, and 

 accompanies them in their search for such food as roots, seeds, grubs, 

 and the like. His tribal brothers then paint him on the chest and 

 back, and he is thrown up into the air and caught. This is sup- 

 posed to be beneficial to his growth. After this he now lives in 

 the bachelors' camp, and accompanies the bachelors on their hunting 

 expeditions. 



Eight or ten years later he has to submit to circumcision and 

 subincision, as described by Dr E. C. Stirling and Mr Gillen in the 

 results of the Horn expedition. After that he may take a wife, 

 and engage in other ceremonies. In the tribes of the East of Aus- 

 tralia this stage is marked off by the knocking out of one of the 

 front teeth, a ceremony to which a good deal of importance is 

 attached. Amongst the Aruntas, though a front tooth is occa- 

 sionally knocked out, yet the habit seems devoid of any sacred 

 import, and appears to be a survival, the meaning of which is 

 forgotten. 



Totem and Churinya. — When the candidate has reached thirty, 

 or in some cases forty years, he takes part in two sets of ceremonies 

 which extend over several months, and it was these ceremonies 

 which Messrs Spencer and Gillen had such unique opportunities of 

 observing. The first set deals with the various totems of the tribe. 

 There are very large numbers of totems in the tribe, and to one of 

 these each black owes allegiance, and may be called by its name. 

 Some may be kangaroos, others native peach trees, others dingoes or 

 witchetty grubs, and so on. It has long been known that the 

 marriage rules of the Arunta were governed, not by the totems, but 

 by the classes previously alluded to, and why certain persons are 

 attached to certain totems is one of the most peculiar and important 



