LXIV PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



each regarded as ibelonging more especially to a particular group, 

 but the whole recognised as the common property of the tribe. For 

 example, in the Arunta and allied tribes in Central Australia 

 each local group has a sacred spot called " E'rtnatulunga " — ^often 

 a little chasm or cave amongst the rocks, or merely a hole in the 

 bank of a creek^in which are stored the sacred churinga or bull- 

 roarers. It is in charge of the head man . of the local group. 

 Speaking of this to a white man, he would certainly describe it 

 as belonging to him, and yet he has no power whatever to part 

 with its contents — -no more right, indeed, than the youngest mem- 

 ber of the tribe. The ground suirounding it is sacred, nothing on 

 it- may be touched ; even an offender against tribal law is safe so 

 long as he remains there, giving us the earliest foreshadowing of 

 a " city of refuge." So far as the question of dealing with the 

 contents of the .Ertnatulunga during the performance of cere- 

 monies is concerned, the decision of the head man is final, hut 

 the property is strictly entailed, and the overlordship passes from 

 the father to the eldest son, or, where there is no 'actual son, then 

 to the eldest tribal son. 



Amongst Australian tribes we can recognise the germ of the 

 idea of restricted rights in landed property, but no such thing as 

 individual rights. A man belonging to one local group will not 

 enter the country of another in his own tribe without asking per- 

 mission to do so, which is never withheld. On the other hand, 

 members of one tribe would never venture, as friends, on the land 

 of another except after having received a definite invitation to 

 attend some ceremony conveyed in recognised form by a messenger 

 carrying 'a sacred em'blem, which acts as a passport and secures 

 his safety when traversing the country of another tribe, or after 

 waiting on the borderland until they were formally received as 

 friends, when they would be greeted by the home tribe in some 

 special way indicative of friendly feeling. Should they enter 

 uninvited — that is, as enemies — they would do so at their own 

 risk. 



In the country of each local group again there are certain 

 camping grounds common to the members of the group and occu- 

 pied by a varying number of families, each comprising a man- and 

 his wife or wives and their children. There is no such thing as 

 any one man having a pre-emptive right to any particular piece of 

 land. 



In addition to the tribe, local group, and family, there is a 

 further, though only somewhat vaguely defined, organization of 

 the tribes into what Dr. Howitt called " nations." The term is a 

 little unfortunate, because it implies the existence of a more 

 strongly marked cohesion, amalgamation, and also community of 

 language than actually exists amongst the tribes forming these 



