June io, 1897] 



NATURE 



11 



the women dance round, the men toss the boys in the air and 

 catch them as they fall. 



This over, they are painted on the back and chest with 

 straight or curved bands outlined by red or yellow ochre lines, 

 the painting being done by a man who stands in the relationship 

 to the boy of brother to a woman whom it will afterwards be 

 lawful for him to take as wife. The boy is told that this cere- 

 mony will promote his growth, and that the time has now come 

 when he must no longer play with, and live at the camp of, the 

 women and children, but must go to that of the unmarried men, 

 and live with them. He begins to accompany the men in their 

 hunting expeditions, listens to their talks around the camp fire 

 u night, and looks forward to the time when he shall be 

 idmitted to the privilege of manhood. 



Some years elapse before the second ceremony is performed. 

 When he arrives at puberty, or possibly not till some time later, 

 the rite of circumcision is practised ; and a short time after this, 

 there follows the third rite — that of sub-incision. When he has 

 passed through these three ceremonies, the native is admitted to 

 the ranks of the men ; he may wear a hair girdle round his 

 waist, tie his hair back with the forehead-band, and may take a 

 wife. 



The different periods of his life are indicated by different 

 terms. When a mere child, he is Amba-querka ; after having 

 been thrown up, he is Ulpmerka ; after circumcision, he is 

 Arrakurta ; after sub-incision, he is Ertwa-kurka ; and finally, 

 when he has passed through the Engwurra, he becomes an 

 Urliara. 



The Engwurra ceremony, which the authors witnessed, was 

 held amongst the Macdonnell Ranges, in the vicinity of Alice 

 Springs telegraph station on the overland telegraph line be- 

 tween Adelaide and Port Darwin. Of this station one of the 

 authors is officer in charge ; and his long acquaintance with the 

 natives, as well as the fact that he is Sub-Protector of the 

 Aborigines, has given him special facilities for gaining their 

 confidence. 



The ceremony lasted four months, commencing in September 

 1896, and ending in January 1897 ; and during this period the 

 authors spent the greater part of the time in the native camp, 

 being allowed to witness everything which took place — being, 

 in fact, regarded as members of the tribe. 



The spot chosen for the ceremony was a level stretch of 

 ground, hemmed in on one side by a range of rugged quartzite, 

 and on the other by the River Todd, which, like all other 

 Central Australian rivers, is, except at rare intervals, a dry tract 

 of sand bordered by steep banks on which grows a fringe of gum- 

 trees and low scrub. This level flat formed the Mirra Engwurra, 

 or Engwurra Camp. The women's camp was out of sight on 

 the other side of the river ; for, needless to say, the women 

 and uninitiated were not allowed to go anywhere near to the 

 sacred ground. 



The natives are summoned to the Engwurra by messengers sent 

 out by the old man who presides at the ceremony. There may 

 be one or more messengers, and each carries one or two of the 

 sacred sticks or Churinga wrapped up from sight in emu feathers, 

 the Churinga being of the nature of the objects commonly called 

 bull-roarers. The messenger who summons to the Engwurra 

 is called Ikhinkiiija, the word being a compound of ihha, hand, 

 and inkinja, to lift up, and may be translated by the term " the 

 beckoning hand. " The significance of the Churinga will be seen 

 shortly ; meanwhile it may be said that in their natural state 

 no native dare disobey such a summons, through fear of the 

 harmful consequences which would befall him if he did so. 



Representatives of the different local groups of the Arunta 

 tribe assembled early in September, each group bringing with it 

 stores of its sacred Churinga, which were under the careful 

 charge of the elder men. 



Before going further, it is necessary to allude briefly to the 

 organisation of the tribe. Its division into exogamously inter- 

 marrying phratries or classes has been already clearly shown 

 by Messrs. Howitt and Fison, and later by Messrs. Gillen and 

 Stirling. There is little doubt but that originally there were 

 two main phratries, each of which became divided again into 

 two, whilst at the present day the division has been, or rather 

 IS now being, carried still further, with the result that instead of 

 four, we have eight sub-phratries. This division into eight 

 exists in reality throughout the tribe ; but it is only amongst the 

 northern groups that there are separate names for each of them, 

 and it will be simpler here to deal with the four which are 

 found throughout the tribe. The names of these four are Panunga, 



NO. 1 44 1, VOL. 56] 



Bultharra, Purula and Kumarra, One moiety of the tribe con- 

 sists of the first two, the other of the second two. The marriage 

 arrangements are as follows : — 



/Bultharra (male) marries Kumarra, children are Panunga. 

 \ Panunga „ ,, Purula, ,, „ Bultharra. 



/Purula ,, ,, Panunga, ,, ,, Kumarra. 



t Kumarra ,, ,, Bultharra, ,, ,, Purula. 



Every Bultharra man, for example, must marry a Kumarra 

 woman, that is, one who comes from the moiety of the tribe to 

 which he does not belong, and their children, go into the man's 

 moiety, but into the sub-phratry to which he did not belong. At the 

 same time the Kumarra women are divided into two sets, owing 

 to the social organisation — details of which will subsequently be 

 published by the authors — and these two sets stand respectively 

 to each individual Bultharra man in the relationship of^what is 

 called Unawa and UnkuUa, and it is only the former who are 

 eligible to him as wives. In just the same way the Bultharra 

 men are divided into two sets, who stand respectively to any 

 Kumarra woman in the relationship of Unawa, whom she may 

 marry, and Unkulla, whom she may not. 



There can be no doubt whatever about the fact that the 

 Panunga and Bultharra form one moiety, and the Kumarra and 

 Purula another. This is shown in various ways, and when large 

 numbers of the natives are gathered together at such a ceremony 

 as the Engwurra, it stands out most clearly. Not only are there 

 two main camps on the Engwurra ground, at one of which the 

 Panunga and Bultharra gather, and at the other the Purula and 

 Kumarra, but the sacred Churinga are deposited in two separate 

 spots, those of the Panunga and Bultharra being placed, during 

 the Engwurra which the authors witnessed, on a platform erected 

 in a Mulga tree on the hill-side, overiooking at one end the 

 ceremony ground, whilst those of the Kumarra and Purula were 

 placed on a small platform at the opposite end. 



As soon as the natives had begun to assemble, the Alice 

 Springs blacks, in whose locality the ceremony was to be per- 

 formed, opened the proceedings by performing two corrobborees, 

 or ordinary dancing festivals, which occupied the evenings of 

 the first three weeks, and at which, as they are not sacred, the 

 women are allowed to be present, and to take part. 



Before these were finished, the old man presiding over the 

 Engwurra went to the chosen ground, and there raised a small 

 mound of earth about forty feet long, one foot high, and two feet 

 across, planting all along it small boughs of Eucalyptus. This 

 mound is called the Parra, and apparently represents a tract of 

 country. When this was done, the older men, who had already 

 passed through the ceremony, and had thus become Urliara, to- 

 gether with the younger men, about forty in number, and varying 

 in age from twenty to thirty-five, or even forty, who were to be 

 made Urliara, spent the whole time during the ensuing two and 

 a half months in the performance of sacred ceremonies on the 

 Engwurra ground. Every day a certain number of young men 

 are sent out to hunt for game, but from this time forward until 

 the end of the whole ceremony they are not supposed to go near 

 the women's camps. They must sleep at night on the Engwurra 

 ground, and are completely under the control of the older men, 

 whose orders they must implicitly obey. 



The sacred ^ ceremonies, of which the authors witnessed the 

 performance of about sixty, were all concerned with the numerous 

 totems into which the members of the tribe are divided, and the 

 special object of the authors was to gain an insight into the 

 totemic system, and in connection with this to arrive, if possible, 

 at a correct knowledge of the significance of the Churinga. 

 These Churinga, or sacred sticks and stones,'- are the most 

 valuable possession of the Arunta natives, and throughout the 

 tribe they are stored in considerable numbers in special hiding- 

 places, the exact locality of which is only supposed to be known 

 to the older men of each local group in whose district they are 

 preserved. The whole tribe is divided up into a large number 

 of such local groups, who reside in and are regarded as the 

 proprietors of a definite tract of land, and each of the latter is 

 especially associated with the name of some object, which is 

 usually that of an animal or plant, and is, in fact, the totem of 



1 The term sacred is used to distinguish them from the ordinary ones, 

 such as thed.incing lestivals, commonly called corrobborees, which any one, 

 women and children included, may witness, whilst the sacred ones may only 

 be seen by initiated men. 



2 Remarks upon and drawings of some of these will be found in the work 

 by Messrs. Ciillen and Stirling, previously alluded to. Therein Mr. Gillen 

 supplied the information that they were symbolic of the totems, which may 

 be modified now by saying that each Churinga is symbolic of an individual 

 belonging to a particular totem. 



