274 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



tend to elucidate the relation between menstruation 

 and conception. 



In the long run to be sure the true cause of birth 

 was discovered. But such was the force of tradition 

 that it has nowhere been recognised without the 

 important qualification that though sexual intercourse 

 may now be the ordinary method of fertilisation, it has 

 not always been a condition precedent to child-birth, 

 and other causes are still operative to which the same 

 result is attributable. Even at the present day the 

 Arunta invariably ascribe birth to a totally different 

 cause ; * and it is important in this connection as show- 

 ing their ignorance on the subject to note that they 

 date conception from the time when the woman 

 becomes conscious of pregnancy that is to say, from 

 quickening. In this respect they resemble the Bahau 

 of Central Borneo, who, according to Nieuwenhuis, have 

 no notion of the real duration of pregnancy, dating its 

 commencement only from the time it first becomes 



1 Supra, vol. i. p. 238. Mr. Strehlow has not been able to find con- 

 firmation of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's report that the Arunta 

 hold intercourse to be merely a preparation of the woman for the 

 reception and birth of a spirit-child already formed and inhabiting 

 one of the local totem-centres. It is possible this report is due to 

 a misunderstanding. An objection urged (/. A. L xxxv. 329) to 

 the Arunta theory of birth, that the Arunta would be much 

 astonished if a woman not " prepared " for motherhood by inter- 

 course with men received and gave birth to a spirit-child, is of no 

 weight. They would indeed be astonished, because every woman 

 has sexual intercourse. But every woman does not bear in 

 consequence. 



Mr. Strehlow, like Mr. Lang, hints that the Arunta are not so 

 innocent as they pretend : so difficult is it for a white man to 

 imagine the ignorance of the savage a difficulty not confined to 

 the subject under consideration. But the similar (often virtually 

 identical) reports concerning the ignorance of other Australian 

 tribes are strong confirmation of the reports of Arunta ignorance. 



