TRANSFORMATION 237 



and these again are subdivided so as further to regulate 

 sexual relations. But the birth of a child is not 

 ascribed to sexual intercourse. That intercourse at 

 most plays an accessory part. The child may come 

 without it. Intercourse " merely as it were prepares 

 the mother for the reception and birth also of an 

 already-formed spirit child who inhabits one of the 

 local totem centres." 1 On this point the explorers' 

 evidence is emphatic and was confirmed by further 

 inquiries made on their third journey. The Ura- 

 bunna, the most southerly of the central Tribes, 

 reckon descent in the female line only. Far in the 

 past each of the totem-clans originated from a com- 

 paratively small number of individuals, who were half- 

 human and half-animal or half- plant, after which the 

 clan is named. They were possessed of more than 

 human powers, and they deposited in the ground at 

 certain spots where they performed sacred ceremonies 

 a number of spirit-individuals, some of whom became 

 men and women and formed the first series of totem- 

 groups or clans. Since that time these spirit-individuals 

 have been continually undergoing reincarnation. 

 When one incarnation dies his spirit returns to the 

 spot where the original deposit was made, and there 

 awaits reincarnation. He chooses, subject to certain 

 conditions with which we need not concern ourselves, 

 the woman whom he will enter. 2 



1 S. and G. Cent. Tribes, 265. It may be noted, in con- 

 firmation of the statement that these tribes do not ascribe the birth 

 of a child to sexual intercourse, that among several of them at any 

 rate (and, it may be suspected, now or at one time among all) the 

 mother uses a different word from that employed by her husband to 

 indicate the relationship of a son or daughter to the speaker (S. 

 and G. Cent. Tribes, 76 sqq., North. Tribes, 78 sqq.). 



2 S. and G. North. Tribes, 145, sqq. 



