PRESIDENTS ADDRESS—SECTION F. 119 
aborigine is a homeceopath; something endowed with magic 
power has entered, he says, the body of tis man, and is causing 
all the trouble. The only way to treat it is to send some more 
magic into the body, and accordingly he does so in the form of 
a number of his Atnongara stones. The actions of a good 
medical man are fetcn very dramatic; in fact, dramatic 
capacity is as needful to a successful practitioner amongst the 
natives as a good “ bedside manner” is to a town practitioner. 
The result in both cases is identical, the patient is inspired with 
confidence, and Nature does the rest. 
This association of magic powers with the possession of stones, 
in which the power is supposed to be resident, is met with in 
other parts of Australia, as, for example, amongst the Kurnai, 
who once inhabited Eastern Gippsland, and amongst whom in 
their natural condition Mr. Howitt says that it was a universal 
practise to carry about a “rounded, generally black pebble,” 
to which the name of “ bulk” was given, and that it was sup- 
posed to be of general magic power. 
In some cases the new medicine man is initiated by another 
practitioner, in which case he has to submit to having his body 
scored in a painful way by the magic stones, which the older 
man produces from his body for the purpose. He has to eat 
and drink food and water, into which small stones are actually 
introduced, and to submit to having his tongue cut with a sharp 
flake, and to having also a hole made in the end of one of his 
first fingers, into which a small stone is introduced. All this is, 
of course, carried out in some secret spot, and when the painful 
operations are all over the man returns to camp, and maintains 
strict silence until the wound in his tongue is healed. When, 
however, the native has learnt about the use of pointing sticks 
and other articles of magic, and has been initiated into the 
mysteries associated with the sacred Churinga, he has yet to 
witness and take part in what is, perhaps, the most important 
of the many ceremonies connected with magic. Every native, 
as we have already said, is regarded as the reincarnation of an 
individual who lived in the Alcheringa. Now each of the latter 
is supposed to be the transformation of some animal or plant, 
or of some material object, and the name of this the individual 
bears as his totemic name. That is, some men in the Alcheringa 
were kangaroo men, others were snake men, others eaglehawk 
men. The natural consequence is that the man who is the re- 
incarnation of a kangaroo man is himself a kangaroo man, and 
so on. Every member of the tribe has some material object 
with which he is supposed to be especially associated, and 
which is spoken of as his totem. In one locality it is customary 
to find a considerable number of men who belong to one par- 
ticular totem, owing to the fact that in the Alcheri nga the men 
of one totem were closely associated with one another, and 
