NOTES ON SOME NATIVE TRIBES OF AUSTRALIA. 11] 
she is living in a crow man’s country. In such a case the 
child, when born, will be denominated a crow the same as 
its father. Should the woman, however, at the time of 
the quickening, happen to be on a visit to her own people 
in the district where she was born and brought up, the 
chances are in favour of the interesting fact being con- 
nected with one of her own ancestors, say a porcupine; 
then the child will get the totemic name of the porcupine, 
the same as its mother. Again, if the woman, at the 
critical moment, happened to be at a part of the common 
hunting grounds, where the pigeon spirits are supposed to 
predominate, her infant would be a pigeon. In this way 
there could be children of the same parents all possessing 
different totemic names, many examples of which are found 
among the Chau-an, Chingalee and other tribes. But as 
the married pair of our example would naturally frequent 
their own crow tract more than anywhere else, as stated 
in the last paragraph, their crow progeny would probably 
be the most numerous, or it might be that all their children 
would be crows. This has given rise to the erroneous 
statements made by other investigators that the descent 
of the totems is through the father. 
In some of these historic places the spirits of several 
different kinds of animals which were closely related to 
each other, are now sald to inhabit the same rock, tree, 
spring, etc., or at any rate to occupy places in close prox- 
imity to each other, and roam about in company the same 
as they did when “in the flesh.’’ If a mother first felt 
the movements of the foetus at that locality, it would be 
almost impossible to say which of the spirits had entered 
her body, and consequently in such cases it is always 
difficult for the oid men to decide the denomination of the 
totem to which the child shall be deemed to belong. 
Rev. L. Schultze, in speaking of the tribes on the Upper 
Finke River, states:—‘‘These natives believe that the 
