2 6 
MEMOIR 
so in November 1896, after a visit to the same district in the 
previous year for zoological purposes, when he was fortunate 
enough to witness the effect on animal life of a heavy rain¬ 
fall, we find him back at Alice Springs, prepared to go with 
Gillen as deep as civilized man can hope to do into the 
institutional and mental life of the now famous Arunta, 
a Stone-age people. From here he writes to the veteran 
Fison, who with his friend and coadjutor Howitt had been 
forward to assist the venture with encouragement and advice, 
so that Spencer ever afterwards regarded them as his 
spiritual parents in Australia: ‘Gillen they call the Oknirra- 
bata , which means “great teacher”.’ He goes on to explain 
that Gillen knows the language thoroughly enough to under¬ 
stand most of what they say, and that the blacks have implicit 
faith in him. As for Spencer, Gillen has managed to per¬ 
suade them that he is his younger brother—not such a fib 
as it sounds, perhaps, in view of their wider use of such 
relationship terms. 
This Frank Gillen was of Irish parentage and showed all 
the marks of his race—being impetuous, generous, witty, and 
bubbling over with energy. As Spencer admiringly reports 
of his colleague to Frazer, ‘he is simply indefatigable’. Born 
at Clare in South Australia in 1855, he entered the telegraph 
service, and in that capacity had been placed in charge of 
Alice Springs, important as the repeating station half-way 
between Adelaide and Port Darwin. But his services as an 
operator were as nothing compared with his usefulness in 
managing the natives; for much tact was required in order 
to humour them—as, for instance, if they were to be pre¬ 
vented from breaking off the insulators along the line in 
order to chip them into the traditional kind of implement— 
a tendency satisfactorily countered by supplying them with 
plenty of broken bottles. As it was, he and his wife, who 
was devoted to him and his work, and whose interests and 
