Fire Ceremony of Central Aiistralian Tribes. 23 



Achilpa of Urapitchera which means a ceremony of the " wild 

 cat "^ totem of Urapitchera, a place on the Finke River ; the 

 Quabarra Okirra of Idracowra which means a ceremony of the 

 kangaroo totem of Idracowra, a place on the Finke River, and 

 the Quabarra Unchichera of Imanda, which means a ceremony 

 of the frog totem of a place called Imanda or the Bad Crossing 

 on the Hugh River. 



In this way each ceremony was concerned with some particular 

 totem and not only this but with a totem or rather a special 

 division of a totem of some particular locality, and further still, 

 each ceremony was owned and presided over by some old man, 

 usually, but not always, of the totem and locality with which it 

 was concerned. 



By means of enquiring carefully after each performance as to 

 what it represented, the authors were able to gather together a 

 large series of notes relating to the traditions of the tribes in 

 regard to the totems, but, for the present purpose, the following 

 brief outline of the myths or traditions which have sprung up to 

 account for the curious totemic system of the tribe will suthce. 



All the ceremonies were concerned with certain mythical 

 ancestors who lived in what the natives call the "alcheringa" or 

 dream times. These ancestors are so intimately as.sociated in the 

 native mind with the animals or plants whose name they bore 

 that an alcheringa man of, say the kangaroo totem, may be 

 spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or as a kangaroo-man. The 

 identity of the human individual appears to be sunk in that of 

 the object with which he is associated and from which he is 

 supposed to have originated. 



These alcheringa men and women are represented as collected 

 together in companies, each one of which consisted of a certain 

 number of individuals. The members of each company were of 

 the same totem and belonged to the same moiety of the tribe, 

 that is they were either Purula and Kumarra, or Panunga and 

 Bultharra. In the alchei-inga, for example, we meet with 

 traditions referring to several groups of " wild cat " men, most 

 of them composed of Purula and Kumarra but some of Panunga 

 and Bultharra, the kangaroo men seem to have been Purula and 



1 i.e., Dnsmnis geotf-'roi/i. 



