TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 74^ 



attached to a human skull, which rested on a stone. Eeside the shrine of the 

 hammer-headed shark was a small heap of shells which was the shrine of a sea- 

 snake, which was supposed to have originated from the shark. These shrines 

 were formerly covered over by long low huts, which like tlie fence were decorated 

 with large Fusus shells. 



Outside the fence were two heaps of shells which had a mystical connection 

 with the shrine : they were called the ' navels of the totems.' 



I have referred to the inticlduyna ceremonies of the Arunta tribe of Central 

 Australia as being magical rites undertaken by certain kinsmen for the multiplica- 

 tion of the totems. In some cases, apparently, the ceremonies may take place 

 wherever the men happen to be camping ; in other cases there iire definite locali- 

 ties where they must be performed, as there are in these places certain stones, 

 rocks, or trees which are intimately connected with the magical rites. These- 

 spots may be spoken of as shrines. In the island of Mabuiag the magical cere- 

 mony for the alluring of the dugong was performed by the men of that kin in 

 their own kiood, which was a fixed spot ; and doubtless this was the case in the 

 other islands of Torres Straits, for even in the small islands there was a tendency 

 to a territorial grouping of the kins. This localisation of a totem cult has 

 proceeded one step further in Yam Island. Here we have a dual synthesis. The 

 chief totem of each group of kins is practically alone recognised ; in other words, 

 the various lesser totems are being absorbed by two more important totems. 

 Each totem has a distinct shrine, and the totem itself, instead of being a whole 

 species, is visualised in the form of a representation of an individual animal, and 

 tliis image was spoken of as the totem {amjud). Indeed, the tendency to cou- 

 cretism had gone so far that the life of the augud was supposed to reside in the 

 stone that lay beneath the image,' and certain heaps of shells were the navels of 

 the totems, a further linkage of the totem to that spot of ground. 



A suggestion as to the significance of this transformation is not lacking. There 

 are various folk-tales concerning a family of brothers who wandered from west to 

 east across Torres Straits. Some of them were, in a mysterious way, sharks as 

 well as men. The two brothers who went to Yam were called Sigai and Maiau, 

 and each became associated, in his animal form, with one of the two phratries. 

 The shrines in the hiond were so sacred that no women might visit them, nor did 

 the women know what the totems were like. They were aware of Sigai and 

 Maiau, but they did not know that the former was the hammer-headed shark and 

 the latter was the crocodile ; this mystery was too sacred to be imparted to thft 

 uninitiated. When the totems were addressed it was always by their hero names, 

 and not by their animal or totem names. 



Malu, another of these brothers, introduced the cult that bears his name to the 

 Murray Islanders, who form part of the Eastern tribe. He also was identified 

 with a hammer-headed shark. Totemism, as such, had practically disappeared 

 from Murray Island before the advent of the white man, and the great ceremonies 

 at the initiation of the lads into the Malu fraternity were a main feature of the 

 religion of these people. 



In Yam totemism was merging into a hero cult; in Murray Island the trans- 

 formation was accomplished ; the one had replaced the other. 



In Mabuiag, one of the Western Islands, there was a local hero named Kwoiam 

 whose deeds are narrated in a prose epic. Kwoiam made two crescentic ornaments 

 of turtle-shell, which blazed with light when he wore them at nighttime, and 

 which he nourished with the savour of cooked fish. These ornaments were called 

 totems (ciugud) — presumably because the natives did not know by what other 

 sacred name to call them — and they became the insignia of the two groups of kins 

 of Mabuiag. The crescent which was worn above Kwoiam's mouth was regarded 

 as the more important, and those kins which had land animals for their totems 



' For the keeping of a soul in an external receptacle, and for Dr. Frazer's views- 

 on its bearing on totemism, of. Furinightly lieview, Slav 1899, p. 844 ; The Golden 

 Boufffi, iii. 1900, pp. 418-422 ; and S. A. Cook, Jeivish Quart. Iiivic7v, 1902, p. 34 of 

 reprint. 



