The Secret of the Totem

by Andrew Lang

Three facts are now apparent. The Arunta (i) must have reckoned in the male line for a very long time, otherwise their myths would not take local totem-centres for granted as a primeval fact, since such centres can only occur and exist under male reckoning of descent; in cases where the husbands do not go to the wives' region of abode. (2) The myth that totemic local ghosts are reincarnated cannot be older than local totem-centres, for it is their old local totem-centres that the totemic ghosts do haunt. The spots are strewn with their old totem-marked churinga. The myths make the wandering groups of fabled ancestors all of one totem, because, by male reckoning, they could be little else till the churinga superstition arose and scattered totems about at random in the population.

Again, (3) even local totemism, plus the belief in the reincarnation of primary ancestral spirits, did not produce the non-exogamy of totems, till it was reinforced by the unique Arunta belief in the stone churinga nanja.

The totemism of the Arunta, then, was originally like that of their neighbours, exogamous, till the stone churinga nanja became the centre of a myth which introduces the same totems into both exogamous moieties among the Arunta, where it has broken down the old exogamous totemic rule. Among the Kaitish, as we saw, the rule is still surviving in general practice.

We now proceed to demonstrate that the more northern tribes have never passed through the present Arunta state of belief and customary law.

Suppose that the Arunta to-day dropped their churinga nanja belief, and allowed the totem name to be inherited through the father, as the right to work the ceremonies of the totem still is inherited by sons who do not inherit the totem itself. What would follow? Why, totems among the Arunta would still be non-exogamous, for the existing churinga nanja belief has brought the same totems into both exogamous moieties, and there they would remain, after they came to be inherited in the male line. In the same way, if the northern tribes had once been in the Arunta state of belief, their totems would still be in both exogamous moieties, and would not regulate marriage. But this is not the case. These tribes, therefore, have never been in the present Arunta condition. Q.E.D.

The Arunta belief is, obviously, an elaboration of the belief in reincarnation, not held, as far as is known, by the Dieri, but held by the Urabunna, and by all tribes from the Urabunna northwards to the sea. Mr. Howitt does not mention the belief among the south-eastern tribes. But there is a kind of tendency towards it among the Euahlayi of north-west New South Wales, reported on by Mrs. Langloh Parker (MS.). This tribe reckons in the female line, has phratries, and uses the class names (four), but not the phratry names of the Kamilaroi. Each individual has a Minngah tree haunted by spirits unattached. Medicine men have Minngah rocks. These answer to the Arunta Nanja (Warramunga, Mungai) trees and rocks in mortuary local totem-centres. But the Minngah-tree spirits do not seek reincarnation. Only spirits of persons dying young, before initiation, are reincarnated. Fresh souls for new bodies are made by the Crow and the Moon. These spirits, when "made," hang in the boughs of the coolabah tree only, not round Minngah trees or rocks.

I think it possible, or even probable, that ideas like those of the Euahlayi exist among the southern Arunta and elsewhere. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen give a Kaitish myth of two men "who arose from churinga," and heard Atnatu (the Kaitish sky-dwelling being, the father of some men) making, in the sky, a noise with his churinga (the wooden bull roarer).[27] Now, I have seen the statement, on which I lay no stress, that in extreme south-west Aruntadom a sky-dwelling Emu-footed being lost two stone churinga. Out of one sprang a man, out of the other a woman. They had offspring, "but not by begetting."

Among the tribes with the reincarnation belief connubial relations are supposed only to "prepare the mother for the reception and birth also of an already formed spirit child."[28] This apparent ignorance of physical facts, not found among the south-eastern tribes, is a corollary from the reincarnation belief, or from the other belief that spirit children are "made" by some non-human being. (Cf. Chapter XI.)

To continue with the statement as to the southern Arunta, the sky-dwelling being "has laid germs of the little boys in the mistletoe branches, germs of little girls among the split stones ... such a germ of a child enters a woman by the hip." Now among the Euahlayi, when the spirit children made by the Crow and the Moon are weary of waiting to be reincarnated, they are changed into mistletoe branches.

I do not insist on the alleged sky-dwelling being of these Arunta, for Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (in their two books) have not found him, and Mr. Howitt thinks that his name arises from a misunderstanding. Kempe, a missionary of 1883, speaks of "Altjira, 'god,' who gives the children."[29] Altjira, "god," may be a mistake, based on the root of Alcheringa or Altjiringa, "dream." On the other hand, Mr. Gillen himself credits the Arunta with a belief in a sky-dwelling being, and with a creed incompatible with the faith in reincarnation, as, in tins Anunta myth, human souls are not reincarnated. This information we quote.