1 64 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



strong, as he would have done with his fellow-twin 

 had he been permitted to live." * 



Concerning the belief of the Dieri tribe of South 

 Australia we are told : " There are places covered by 

 trees which are held very sacred, the larger ones being 

 supposed to be the remains of their fathers meta- 

 morphosed. The natives never hew them, and should 

 the settlers require to cut them down, they earnestly 

 protest against it, asserting they would have no luck 

 and themselves might be punished for not protecting 

 their ancestors." 2 Further to the north in Central 

 Australia it is a common belief that where their 

 mythical ancestors " went into the ground " a stone or 

 a tree arose to mark the spot. "In the Arunta tribe 

 every individual has his or her Nanja tree or rock at 

 the spot where the old ancestor left his spirit-part 

 when he went down into the ground. . . . This rock 

 or tree and its immediate surroundings are sacred, and 

 no plant or animal found there may be killed or eaten 

 by the individual who is thus associated with the spot. 

 In all essential features, but with variation in details, 

 the same idea is found in the beliefs of the Kaitish 

 and Unmatjera tribes." 3 Such a tree or rock is be- 

 yond all doubt a transformation of the totem-ancestor. 

 The sagas identify it over and over again ; and the 

 only dispute among modern observers who record the 

 facts is whether the tree, the rock, the churinga, or 

 whatever the object may be, is a transformation of the 

 cotem-ancestor himself or merely of his " spirit-part." 4 



1 Callaway, Journ. Anthr. Soc. iv. cxxxviii. 



2 Gason, The Dieyerie Tribe, quoted Brough Smyth, i. 426 note. 



3 S. and G. North. Tribes, 448. 



4 Strehlow, i. Preface, and passim; Globus, xci. 288. See post, 

 p. 241 note. 



