Euro ceremony.
Cockatoo ceremony.
Again, in a rocky gorge of the Murchison Range there are numbers of little heaps of rounded, water-worn stones, carefully arranged on beds of leaves and hidden away under piles of rougher quartzite blocks. In the opinion of the Warramunga tribe, these rounded stones represent euros, that is, a species of kangaroo. According to their size they stand for young or old, male or female euros. Any old man of the euro totem who happens to pass the spot may take the stones out, smear them with red ochre and rub them well. This is supposed to cause the spirits of euros to pass out from the stones and to be born as animals, thus increasing the food supply.[297] Again, in the Warramunga tribe Messrs. Spencer and Gillen saw and heard a ceremony which was believed to multiply white cockatoos to a wonderful extent. From ten o’clock one evening until after sunrise next morning the headman of the white cockatoo totem held in his hand a rude effigy of the cockatoo and imitated the harsh cry of the bird, with exasperating monotony, all night long. When his voice failed him, his son took up the call and relieved the old man until such time as his father was rested enough to begin again.[298]
Homoeopathic or imitative character of these rites.
Use of human blood in these ceremonies.
In this last ceremony the homoeopathic or imitative character of the rite is particularly plain: the shape of the bird which is to be multiplied is mimicked by an effigy, its cry is imitated by the human voice. In others of the ceremonies just described the homoeopathic principle works by means of stones, which resemble in shape the edible animals or plants that the natives desire to increase. We shall see presently that the Melanesians similarly attribute fertilising virtues to stones of certain shapes.[299] Meantime it {p90} deserves to be noticed that in some of these Australian rites for the multiplication of the totemic animals the blood of the men of the totem plays an important part. Similarly in a ceremony performed by men of the Dieri tribe for the multiplication of carpet-snakes and iguanas the performers wound themselves and the blood that drips from their wounds is poured on a sandhill in which a mythical ancestor is believed to be buried and from which carpet-snakes and iguanas are confidently expected to swarm forth.[300] Again, when the headman of the fish totem in the Wonkgongaru tribe desires to make fish plentiful, he paints himself all over with red ochre, and, taking little pointed bones, goes into a pool. There he pierces his scrotum and the skin around the navel with the bones, and sits down in the water. The blood from the wounds, as it mingles with the water, is supposed to give rise to fish.[301] In all these cases clearly a fertilising virtue is ascribed to human blood. The ascription is interesting and may possibly go some way to explain the widely-spread custom of voluntary wounds and mutilations in religious or magical rites. It may therefore be worth while, even at the cost of a digression, to enquire a little more closely into the custom as it is practised by the rude savages of Australia.[302]
Blood poured into graves.
Blood given to the sick and aged
Blood used by an avenging party.
In the first place, then, the Dieri custom of pouring blood over the supposed remains of the ancestor in his sandhill closely resembles the custom observed by some of the Australian aborigines at the graves of their relatives. Thus among the tribes on the River Darling several men used to stand by the open grave and cut each other’s heads with a boomerang, and then hold their bleeding heads over the grave so that the blood dripped on the corpse at the bottom of it. If the deceased was highly esteemed, the bleeding was repeated after some earth had been thrown on the corpse.[303] Among {p91} the Arunta it is customary for the women kinsfolk to cut themselves at the grave so that blood flows upon it.[304] Again, at the Vasse River, in Western Australia, before the body was lowered into the grave, the natives used to gash their thighs, and at the flowing of the blood they all said, “I have brought blood,” and they stamped the foot forcibly on the ground, sprinkling the blood around them; then wiping the wounds with a wisp of leaves, they threw it, all bloody, on the dead man. After that they let the body down into the grave.[305] Further, it is a common practice with the Central Australians to give human blood to the sick and aged for the purpose of strengthening them; and in order that the blood may have this effect it need not always be drunk by the infirm person, it is enough to sprinkle it on his body. For example, a young man will often open a vein in his arm and let the blood trickle over the body of an older man in order to strengthen his aged friend; and sometimes the old man will drink a little of the blood.[306] So in illness the blood is sometimes applied outwardly as well as inwardly, the patient both drinking it and having it rubbed over his body; sometimes apparently he only drinks it. The blood is drawn from a man or woman who is related to the sufferer either by blood or marriage, and the notion always is to convey to the sick person some of the strength of the blood-giver.[307] In the Wiimbaio tribe, if a man had nearly killed his wife in a paroxysm of rage, the woman was laid out on the ground, and the husband’s arms being tightly bound above the elbows, the medicine-man opened the veins in them and allowed the blood to flow on the prostrate body of the victim till the man grew faint.[308] The intention of thus bleeding the man over the woman {p92} was apparently to restore her to life by means of the blood drawn from her assailant. Again, before an avenging party starts to take the life of a distant enemy, all the men stand up, open veins in their genital organs with sharp flints or pointed sticks, and allow the blood to spurtle over each other’s thighs. This ceremony is supposed to strengthen the men mutually, and also to knit them so closely together that treachery henceforth becomes impossible. Sometimes for the same purpose blood is drawn from the arm and drunk by the men of the avenging party, and if one of them refuses thus to pledge himself the others will force his mouth open and pour the blood into it. After that, even if he wishes to play the traitor and to give the doomed man warning, he cannot do so; he is bound by a physical necessity to side with the avengers whose blood he has swallowed.[309]