The secret of the totem / by Andrew Lang.

  • Andrew Lang
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The secret of the totem / by Andrew Lang. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/236 page 19
    VARIOUS RITES AND BELIEFS not our opinion nor that of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. The older rite is the mere knocking out of front teeth (also used by the Masai of East Central Africa). This rite, in Central Australia, “has lost its old meaning, its place has been taken by other rites. ^ . . . Increased cruelty accompanies social advance in this instance. In another matter innovation comes from the north. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen are of the opinion that “ changes in totemic matters have been slowly passing down from north to south.” The eight classes, in place of four classes, are known as a matter of fact to have actually “ reached the Arunta from the north, and at the present moment are spreading south- wards.” 2 Again, a feebler form of the reincarnation belief, namely, that souls of the young who die uninitiated are reincarnated, occurs in the Euahlayi tribe of north- western New South Wales.2 Whether the Euahlayi belief came from the north, in a limited way, or whether it is the germinal state of the northern belief, is uncertain. It is plain that if bloody rites and eight classes may come down from the north, totemic magic and the faith in reincarnation may also have done so, and thus modified the rites and “religious” opinions of the Dieri and Urabunna, who are said still to be, socially, in the most pristine state, that of phratries and female descent, with- out matrimonial classes.^ It is also obvious that if the Kaitish faith in a sky-dweller (rare in northern tribes) be a “ sport,” and if the Arunta churinga nanja, plus non- ^ Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 214. The same opinion is stated as very probable in Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 329. N. T, p. 20. ® Mrs. Langloh Parker’s M.S. ^ I am uncertain as to this point among the Urabunna, as will appear later.
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