110 R. H. MATHEWS. 
sand-hill; a tree may be the brother of a rock-hole, and 
so on. 
In all aboriginal tribes there is a deeply seated belief 
in the reincarnation of their ancestors. The original stock 
of spirits, so to speak, perpetually undergo reincarnation 
from one human being to another. The natives are quite 
ignorant of the natural facts of procreation, and believe 
that conception is altogether independent of sexual inter- 
course. When a woman for the first time feels the move- 
ment of the child inthe womb, commonly called quicken- 
ing, she takes particular notice of the spot where it 
occurred and reports it to the people present. It is believed 
that the spirit or soul of some deceased progenitor has 
just at that moment entered the woman’s body. The entry 
may have been by the way of some one of the natural 
openings, or through any part of the skin, the mode and 
place of ingress being immaterial to these ethereal beings. 
When the child is born, it will have assigned to it the 
totemic name of the mythic ancestor belonging to the 
particular locality. For example, if the quickening 
happened near a remarkable rock, or hill, or waterhole, 
or camping place, Which was known to be haunted by the 
traditionary spirit of a galah, the infant would belong to 
the galah totem, altogether independently of either the 
father or the mother. 
Regarding the succession of the totems, it is important 
to remember that in all our aboriginal tribes, a wife is 
taken away into the family group or triblet of her husband, 
and roams about with him through his country. If he be, 
for example, a crow, he and his wife will spend most of 
their time amongst the specific haunts of his ancestors. 
When his wife for the first time becomes conscious of 
being enceinte, she will probably be staying at a spot 
associated with some of the crows of earlier times, because 
