HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
11 
Hart’s Range, or about 100 miles in a direction a little north of east. North of 
Alice Springs this section extends about seventy miles. Probably the Lurna 
Arunda of our black-boy represents another section of the same tribe, although I 
could get no definition of its limits or of the specific names of any other sections 
beyond those mentioned. 
All the blacks of this widely extended tribe speak practically the same 
language, the few variations, often slight but sometimes amounting to actual 
differences, which exist in various localities, being readily understood elsewhere. 
Mr. David Lindsay* reports that the natives on the Plenty and Marshall 
Rivers still further to the eastward, and as far as Lake Nash Station, on the 
Herbert, have the same customs and class divisions, and a language nearly 
identical with that of the Arunta. Further north along his track which lies over 
what is known as the Downs country tribes speaking a wholly different language 
were met with. 
The territory of the Luritchas marches on the western boundary of the 
Aruntas, and comprises the country about Erldunda, Tempo Downs, Gill’s Range, 
Mereenie Bluff and Glen Helen, and extends certainly as far westward as Ayers 
Rock and Mount Olga, which latter was the most westerly point reached by the 
Expedition; probably it stretches still further to the westward. 
According to Mr. Gillen the Luritcha language extends southwards as far as 
Port Augusta West, and northwards to a point at least 100 miles to the north of 
Glen Helen, whei’e the country in which it is spoken approaches to within about 
fifty miles of the telegraph line. It differs entirely from that of their neighbours 
the Aruntas. For the most part the members of each are entirely ignorant of one 
another’s language, and in our experience the only spoken communication between 
them was carried on by means of the limited stock of English at their command. 
On the other hand the manual signs of the gesture language, despite certain 
variations, seemed to be readily understood between these two tribes. 
Physically speaking there is nothing, so far as I could observe or learn, to dis¬ 
tinguish the members of these two tribes from one another. They practice the 
same rites, observe the same kind of ceremonies, have similar body scars, use the 
same weapons, utensils and ceremonial articles. The only feature I could perceive 
which distinguished the Luritcha men was a peculiar method of doing up the back 
hair. This was tied up behind in a kind of chignon, on which was seated, saddle- 
* An E.xpeditioii across Australia, from South to North, in 1885-(J, by David Lindsay. 
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