238 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



Going northward, the next tribe met with is that of 

 the Arunta. According to them the origin of the 

 various totem-groups was somewhat similar. Their 

 totemic ancestors were formed by two individuals 

 called Ungambikula out of incomplete transformations 

 of animals and plants, which they shaped into human 

 beings. These newly formed men and women 

 wandered in bands across the country, carrying objects 

 called Churinga (a kind of bullroarer, usually of stone 

 elaborately marked), every one of which was associated 

 with the spirit-part of an individual. Sometimes each 

 ancestor carried more than one of these churinga. 

 At the various places where these ancestors ultimately 

 " went into the ground," they left behind the churinga 

 they were carrying. The period when these things 

 happened is called the Alcheringa, a term not very 

 happily rendered by " Dream-time," seeing that the 

 Arunta believe the events to have actually occurred in 

 an indefinite but far past period. " There are thus at 

 the present day, dotted about all over the Arunta 

 country, a very large number of places associated with 

 these Alcheringa spirits, one group of whom will be 

 Kangaroo, another Emu, another Hakea plant, and so 

 on. When a woman conceives, it simply means that one 

 of these spirits has gone inside her and, knowing where 

 she first became aware that she was pregnant, the child 

 when born is regarded as the reincarnation of one of 

 the spirit-ancestors associated with that spot, and 

 therefore it belongs to that totemic group." Thus 

 every individual Arunta is a reincarnation of a mythical 

 ancestor. 1 



Further still to the north the Warramunga hold all 

 1 S. and G. op. cit. 150. 



