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 
