PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 579 



after a short stay there and on the Island of Rottnest I followed the 

 north-western coast, which proved to be a most prolific place for study, 

 having been previously practically untouched from an ethnological and 

 anthropological point of view. Intimate connection was established 

 with the Niol Niol tribe in particular, among which the Roman Catholic 

 priests have a mission station at Beagle Bay. Generous help was 

 Tendered by these missionaries. The Niol Niol proved to be a kind 

 and intelligent people, who have preserved the old customs and tradi- 

 tions, having been only in contact with white people for some 12 years. 

 Their language has been studied by the Trappist monks, who founded 

 the mission station. The tribe possesses a great variety of weapons 

 and ceremonial decorations, many of them reminding one much of 

 the specimen described by Spencer and Gillen in their excellent works 

 on the Arunta and the North Central Australian tribes. I secured a 

 fine collection of sacred wooden slabs or churingas, Avhich name (follow- 

 ing Spencer and Gillen) I accept as a term for the whole of Australia, 

 In the north-west the churingas have different names according to 

 their size. Amongst the Niol Niol every man has two churingas, a 

 large one and a small one, called respectively " Minber " and " Man- 

 daka." They consist of wooden material and are carefully ornamented 

 with quadrangular figures. Every real churinga in the Broome district 

 is perforated at one end that it may be used as a bullroarer. They are 

 absolutely restricted to the male individuals. The women have smaller 

 sticks of similar shape, called " Lara," which have not any sacred or 

 secret importance, but are carried round by the lubras as charms. 



There are doubtless some local differences between the north- 

 western and central districts of Australia, by which the different results 

 of investigations are easily accounted for. So far as I have studied 

 the question in the north-west, my attempts to establish a complicated 

 system of totems similar to that described by Spencer and Gillen for 

 Central Australia has been completely unsuccessful. 



The dances I saw performed (but only by night) reminded 

 me very much of the pictures published by Spencer and Gillen ; 

 but at Beagle Bay they are not connected with " totems." For in- 

 stance, an old man, who beautifully imitated a dugong, had nothing 

 to do with anything like a dugong totem. There was no reason for 

 the aboriginals to conceal a totemistic system, because both the mission- 

 aries and I were very intimate with them, and, showing and explaining 

 to them the pictures of " sacred ceremonies " in the papers of Spencer 

 and Gillen, we were able to question them very closely regarding the 

 totemistic laws and performances, but they denied absolutely the 

 existence of such a system. (4) 



I hope to be well understood that, by stating the facts as regards 

 the Broome district, I do not contradict in any way the correctness 

 of the statements made by Spencer and Gillen for Central Australia, 



(4) One of the old intelligent fellows of that tribe is always inventing new 

 •dances — " catching them from a hollow tree "—and such new dances are com- 

 municated to other tribes. 



