684 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



exhibit the old social organisation breaking dowu and new structures in Course of 

 formation. "Withtheevolutionofsociety an evolution of belief has also beengoingon. 

 It has not been exactly concurrent. Culture rarely or never evolves equally in all 

 directions. Itis a mental process, partly conscious, partly unconscious. The common 

 mind of a given society, like the individual minds of which it is composed, is not 

 exercised equally on all subjects at the same time. Hence while, for example, we 

 find among the Euahlayi tribe, in the north of New South Wales, a more advanced 

 theology and a more developed worship than have been recorded elsewhere in 

 Australia, the social organisation is still on the basis of female descent, and though 

 the clansmen eat without scruple their hereditary totems, in other respects the 

 totemic system seems to be in full force. ^ In the same way the Arunta and their 

 neighbours certainly preserve relics of a very archaic condition of thought and social 

 organisation. Though for certain purposes a son inherits from his mother's hus- 

 band, they recognise very imperfectly the physical relation between father and 

 child. They have no tribal chiefs, no social hierarchy. On the other hand, they 

 have developed a very elaborate theory of reincarnation, and their totemic system 

 is in course of transformation into a number of societies for magical purposes bear- 

 ing in some respects remarkable resemblance to those of the tribes of British 

 Columbia. Magical practices are more prominent than what we are usually 

 accustomed to associate with the name of religion. Yet a closer examination will 

 lead us to the conclusion that religion, albeit of a low type, is not wholly wanting. 

 I am by no means satisfied that Twanyirika, the bugbear * to frighten babes 

 withal,' is this and nothing more. Adjacent tribes sharing the general culture of 

 the Arunta at all events believe in the real existence of a superior being called by 

 that or some other name, whom they fear, and in obedience to whom they perform 

 the rites of initiation. When, at the close of these rites amongst the Arunta, some- 

 one with a bundle oi clmrivga in his hand comes up to the newly initiated youih, 

 saying, ' Here is Twanyirika, of whom you have heard so much ; they are Churinga 

 and will help to heal you quickly,' - neither the neophyte nor his friend regards 

 them as mere toys. The statement that they will help to heal the neophyte's 

 wounds is enough to show this. AVe must not be misled by the apparent anti- 

 climax to forget that they are mysterious objects, in the closest association with the 

 tribal ancestors, the outward and visible sign, if not the embodiment, of the ances- 

 tral souls or invisible portions, and as such regarded with veneration. They are 

 endowed with mmm, emanating from the ancestors whom they represent — mann, 

 which iu the belief of these tribes not merely heals wounds, but when the churinga 

 are brought ceremonially in contact with the body produces other physical, mental 

 and even moral effects. Among the Kaitish, the performance of some ceremonies, 

 in the course of which the churinga are handled, renders a man so full of this mana 

 that he becomes for the time taboo. More than this, the churinga make the yams 

 and the grass-seed to grow ; they frighten the game or enable a man to secure it, 

 and so forth. They are handled in a manner which it is no exaggeration to call 

 devout. They are polished with red ochre to ' soften ' them, a term which, as 

 Messrs. Spencer and Gillen remark, ' very evidently points to the fact that the 

 [churinga] is regarded as something much more than a piece of wood or stone. It 

 is intimately associated with the ancestor, and has " feelings," just as human beings 

 have, which can be soothed by the rubbing in the same way in which those of 

 living men can be.' We gather that a man will sing to his churinga, that the 

 subject of his song will be the mythical story of the ancestor (or rather the pre- 

 vious incarnation) to whom it belonged, and that as he sings and rubs it with his 

 hand he ' gradually comes to feel that there is some special association between 

 him and the sacred object — that a virtue of some kind passes from it to him, 

 and also from him to it.' •' Found on another continent these churinga would 

 have been called fetishes in well-nigh the most extended meaning of that word. 

 It is plain that the beliefs and rites of the natives of Central Australia cannot be 

 circumscribed by the limits of the term Magic. 



' Mrs. Langloh Parker, I'he Enahlayi Tribe, passim. 



- Spencer and Gillen, Central Tribes, p. 249. Note also the threat which follows, 



' Ibid., Northern Tribes, chap. viii. passim.. 



