24 Proceedmgs of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



Kumarra, and the witchetty grub men Panunga and Bultharra. 

 At the present day no totem is confined to one moiety of the 

 tribe, but in each "local centre" of a totem we always find a great 

 predominance of members belonging to one half, as for example 

 at Alice Springs, the most important centre of the witchetty 

 grub totem, where amongst a large number of Panunga and 

 Bultharra men there are a few Purula and Kumarra. 



These alcheringa ancestors are represented in tradition, some 

 of them as originating and staying in certain places, such as the 

 witchetty grubs at Alice Springs, others such as the wild cat 

 groups are represented as wandering about over the country in 

 various directions, but along certain definite lines, the route of 

 which is accurately preserved in tradition. 



Every alcheringa man and woman carried about a large number 

 of the sacred churinga,^ the meaning and significance of which 

 has not previously been known. At certain camping places as 

 the alcheringa ancestors travelled on, or at spots where they 

 originated, certain individuals are represented as having gone 

 into the ground and as having been transformed into sacred 

 churinga. Certain also of the latter were placed in the ground 

 at these camping places. 



Each churinga is inseparably associated with a spirit individual 

 — in the case of the individuals who turned into them, the name 

 is even preserved — and so we find at the present day that the 

 whole country occupied by the Arunta is dotted over with 

 numerous spots at each of which numbers of sacred churinga 

 are buried, each of which is associated with a spirit individual. 

 In this way there have been formed what the natives call 

 okndnikilla., that is spots, each of which is, as it were, inhabited 

 by spirit individuals the totem of whom is of course that of the 

 alcheringa indi\idual whom they represent or who cari-ied the 

 churinga with which each one is associated. These oknanikilla 

 may hence be appi-opriately termed local totem centres^ and if we 

 take one alcheringa group of ancestors such as the wild cat for 



1 The form of these, some of which have been figured and described by \arious writers 

 such as Messrs. Stirling, Gillen, Etheridge, etc., are well illustrated in the Report of the 

 Horn Expedition, vol. iv., pi. 7. Their use as sacred objects has been described by writers 

 such as Messrs. Ilowitt, Fison and Gillen. They are of the nature of the " bullroarer," the 

 use and importance of which was first pointed out in .Australia b}' Mr. Hewitt. 



