NOTES ON THE ARRANDA TRIBE. 149 



natives in the Arranda, Loritya, and Erlistoun tribes, as 

 well as among the Chingalee and their neighbours, who 

 state that a spirit child is only born once of a human 

 mother. 1 



Some of my friends found a confirmation of the belief 

 recorded by Mr. Schulze, that when a man dies, his spirit 

 part goes back to the tmara altjira. Altjira means any- 

 thing mysterious or which has been handed down from 

 unknown times ; or something which a native cannot under- 

 stand or account for. Tmara means a camp, and in an 

 extended sense also signifies the district in which a native 

 dwells. Tmara altjira may be translated as the dwelling- 

 place of one's people, right back to the mythical past. 



The Arranda have a tradition that in ancient times the 

 people were shapeless creatures and all of one sex, until a 

 lizard man, whose name was Mangarkunjerkunja, took a 

 sharp stone and by a surgical operation differentiated them 

 into males and females as they are now. This is very 

 similar to a legend reported by Mr. S. Gason in 1874, as 

 existing among the Dieyerie tribe respecting lizards called 

 Moonkamoonkarilla.' 2 Among the Parnkalla natives at Port 

 Lincoln, 700 miles south of Hermannsburg, a lizard was 

 accredited with the same functions, according to the Rev. 

 0. W. Schiirmaun. 3 



The Arranda natives believe in evil spirits called Tatu- 

 ratura, of imaginary forms, who injure men, women or 

 children during the darkness. The souls or spirit parts of 

 living people also wander about at night to extract the fat 

 of their enemies. 



1 Queensland Geographical Journal, xxn., pp. 76 and 79. 



2 The Dieyerie Tribe, republished in " Native Tribes of South Aus- 

 tralia," pp. 260 and 283. 



3 The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln, republished in " Native Tribes 

 of South Australia/' p. 241. 



