168 Primitive Theories of the Origin of Man 
met with under dry bark. To do this he divided the feet of the 
lizards into fingers and toes, and, applying his forefinger to the middle 
of their faces, created a nose; likewise he gave them human eyes, 
mouths and ears. He next set one of them upright, but it fell down 
again because of its tail; so he cut off its tail and the lizard then 
walked on its hind legs. That is the origin of mankind’. 
The Arunta tribe of Central Australia similarly tell how in the be- 
ginning mankind was developed out of various rudimentary forms of 
animal life. They say that in those days two beings called Ungambi- 
kula, that is, “ out of nothing,’ or “self-existing,’” dwelt in the western 
sky. From, their lofty abode they could see, far away to the east, 
a number of énapertwa creatures, that is, rudimentary human beings 
or incomplete men, whom it was their mission to make into real men 
and women. For at that time there were no real men and women; 
the rudimentary creatures (tnapertwa) were of various shapes and 
dwelt in groups along the shore of the salt water which covered the 
country. These embryos, as we may call them, had no distinct limbs 
or organs of sight, hearing, and smell; they did not eat food, and 
they presented the appearance of human beings all doubled up into 
a rounded mass, in which only the outline of the different parts 
of the body could be vaguely perceived. Coming down from their 
home in the western sky, armed with great stone knives, the Ungam- 
bikula took hold of the embryos, one after the other. First of all 
they released the arms from the bodies, then making four clefts at 
the end of each arm they fashioned hands and fingers ; afterwards 
legs, feet, and toes were added in the same way. The figure could 
now stand ; a nose was then moulded and the nostrils bored with the 
fingers. A cut with the knife made the mouth, which was pulled 
open several times to render it flexible. A slit on each side of the 
face separated the upper and lower eye-lids, disclosing the eyes, 
which already existed behind them; and a few strokes more com- 
pleted the body. Thus out of the rudimentary creatures were 
formed men and women. These rudimentary creatures or embryos, 
we are told, “were in reality stages in the transformation of various 
animals and plants into human beings, and thus they were naturally, 
when made into human beings, intimately associated with’ the par- 
ticular animal or plant, as the case may be, of which they were the 
transformations—in other words, each individual of necessity belonged 
to a totem, the name of which was of course that of the animal 
1§, Gason, ‘‘The Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie tribe of Australian 
Aborigines,” Native Tribes of South Australia (Adelaide, 1879), p. 260. This writer 
fell into the mistake of regarding the Mura-Mura (Mooramoora) as a Good-Spirit instead 
of as one of the mythical but more or less human predecessors of the Dieri in the 
country. See A, W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 475 8qq- 
