[309] It will be remembered (see above, p. 107) that in this tribe, the child may have a different totem than his father, his mother, or his relatives in general. Now the relatives on both sides are the performers designated for the ceremonies of initiation. Consequently, since in principle a man can have the quality of performer or officiant only for the ceremonies of his own totem, it follows that in certain cases the rites by which the young man is initiated must be in connection with a totem that is not his own. That is why the paintings made on the body of the novice do not necessarily represent his own totem: cases of this sort will be found in Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 229. That there is an anomaly here is well shown by the fact that the circumcision falls to the totem which predominates in the local group of the initiate, that is to say, to the one which would be the totem of the initiate himself, if the totemic organization were not disturbed, if among the Arunta it were what it is among the Warramunga (see Spencer and Gillen, ibid., p. 219).
The same disturbance has had another consequence. In a general way, its effect is to extend a little the bonds attaching each totem to a special group, since each totem may have members in all the local groups possible, and even in the two phratries. The idea that these ceremonies of a totem might be celebrated by an individual of another totem—an idea which is contrary to the very principles of totemism, as we shall see better after a while—has thus been accepted without too much resistance. It has been admitted that a man to whom a spirit revealed the formula for a ceremony had the right of presiding over it, even when he was not of the totem in question himself (Nat. Tr., p. 519). But that this is an exception to the rule and the product of a sort of toleration is proved by the fact that the beneficiary of the formula does not have the free disposition of it; if he transmits it—and these transmissions are frequent—it can be only to a member of the totem which the rite concerns (Nat. Tr., ibid.).
[310] Nat. Tr., p. 140. In this case, the novice keeps the decoration with which he has thus been adorned until it disappears of itself by the effect of time.
[311] Boas, General Report on the Indians of British Columbia in British Association for the Advancement of Science, Fifth Rep. of the Committee on the N.W. Tribes of the Dominion of Canada, p. 41.
[312] There are also some among the Warramunga, but in smaller numbers than among the Arunta; they do not figure in the totemic ceremonies, though they do have a place in the myths (Nor. Tr., p. 163).
[313] Other names are used by other tribes. We give a generic sense to the Arunta term because it is in this tribe that the churinga have the most important place and have been studied the best.
[314] Strehlow, II, p. 81.
[315] There are a few which have no apparent design (see Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 144).
[316] Nat. Tr., pp. 139 and 648; Strehlow, II, p. 75.
[317] Strehlow, who writes tjurunga, gives a slightly different translation to the word. "This word," he says, "means that which is secret and personal (der eigene geheime). Tju is an old word which means hidden or secret, and runga means that which is my own." But Kempe, who has more authority than Strehlow in this matter, translates tju by great, powerful, sacred (Kempe, Vocabulary of the Tribes inhabiting Macdonell Ranges, s.v. Tju, in Transactions of the R. Society of Victoria, Vol. XIII). At bottom, the translation of Strehlow is not so different from the other as might appear at first glance, for what is secret is hidden from the knowledge of the profane, that is, it is sacred. As for the meaning given to runga, it appears to us very doubtful. The ceremonies of the emu belong to all the members of that clan; all may participate in them; therefore they are not personal to any one of them.