The Native Tribes of North Central Australia: Chapter V. The Churinga or Bull Roarers of the Arunta and Other Tribes

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1 The Churinga is supposed to endow the possessor with courage and accuracy of aim, and also to deprive his opponent of these qualities. So firm is their belief in this that if two men were fighting and one of them knew that the other carried a Churinga whilst he did not, he would certainly lose heart at once and without doubt be beaten.

The Ertnatulunga may be regarded as the early rudiment of a city or house of refuge. Everything in its immediate vicinity is sacred and must on no account be hurt; a man who was being pursued by others would not be touched so long as he remained at this spot. During the Engwura ceremony, when temporary storehouses were made to hold the large number of Churinga which were brought in to the ceremonial ground, and when, as always happens when men from different parts are assembled in large number, there arose any small quarrel, no display of arms was allowed anywhere near to the stores of Churinga. If the men wanted to quarrel they had to go right away from the Churinga stores.

The loss of Churinga is the most serious evil which could befall a group, but, though it might have been expected that

1 we meet with the still more suggestive fact that at a certain time during the initiation ceremonies the men who are in charge of the novices say to them, “This afternoon we will take you, and show your grandfather to you.” “This,” says Mr. Howitt, “is the cryptic phrase used to describe the central mystery, which in reality means the exhibition to the novices of the Tundun, and the revelation to them of ancestral beliefs.” The Tundun is the native name amongst the Kurnai for the bull-roarer. In this account we see, first, that the bull-roarer is identified with a man who is regarded as a great ancestor or Weitwin, that is father's father of the Kurnai. He it was who conducted the first ceremony of initiation, and he made the bull-roarer which

1 When the spirit part has gone into a woman and a child has, as a result, been born, then that living child is the reincarnation of that particular spirit individual.

Not only does each member of the tribe have a Churinga nanja but, shortly after the birth of the child, the headman of

1 Every member of the tribe has his or her secret name, which may be either a new one or that of some celebrated man or woman of the Alcheringa whose name has been handed down in the traditions. This secret name is never uttered except upon the most solemn occasions when the Churinga are being examined, and that of any particular individual is only known to the fully initiated men of his own local totem group. To utter such a name in the hearing of women or of men of another group would be a most serious breach of tribal custom, as serious as the most flagrant case of sacrilege amongst white men. When mentioned at all it is only in a whisper, and then after taking the most elaborate precautions 2 lest it should be heard by anyone outside the members of his own group. The native thinks that a stranger knowing his secret name would have special power to work him ill by means of magic.

Before being allowed to see the Ertnatulunga the native must have passed through the ceremonies of circumcision and subincision, and have shown himself capable of self-restraint and of being worthy by his general demeanour to be admitted to the secrets of the tribe. If he be what the natives call irkun oknirra, that is, light and frivolous and too much given to chattering like a woman, it may be many years

1

The Churinga of the Arunta—that is the particular ones with which we are now concerned—are of two descriptions, stone ones and wooden ones, the latter being sometimes spoken of as Churinga irula. The wooden one, just like the stone one, is Churinga—indeed, the term irula, which simply means “dressed wood,” is seldom used by the natives, and then only as a qualifying term, and never by itself. The stone is no more sacred than the wooden one, and is most highly valued if it be, as many of them are, associated with some special Alcheringa ancestor. At the same time there are often wooden ones of evidently great antiquity, pieced together with sinew of kangaroo or emu to prevent them falling to pieces through decay of the less durable portions, and with holes carefully filled up with porcupine-grass resin, and such as these, though insignificant in appearance, are yet as highly valued as the stone ones. It may be generally said that the value of any particular Churinga, in the eyes of the natives, varies inversely with its value from a decorative point of view; the more obliterated the design, the more it has been patched with resin and bound together with sinew, the more highly is it valued, and the careful way in which many of them have been thus preserved shows the value which is placed upon them by the natives.

Amongst the Churinga in each storehouse are usually a certain number of especially large ones made by Alcheringa men, or by specially celebrated men of olden times who lived since the Alcheringa, for the purpose of being used in the

1 they are, especially the wooden ones, very carefully rubbed over with the hands. First of all dry red ochre is powdered on to them, and then rubbed in with the palm of the hand, the grease of which doubtless assists in preserving the wood to a certain extent. The stone ones are, some of them, rubbed with red ochre, but others with charcoal, which is never used in the case of the wooden ones.

We now come to deal with the patterns on the Churinga all of which have a definite meaning attached to them, though to decipher each individual one, it is essential to gain the information from a man of the totem to which it belongs. Other natives may volunteer information, but as the same

1 In the second case, all the men of a lizard totem, situated some twelve miles to the north-east of Alice Springs, died out. They belonged to the Bulthara and Panunga moiety, and accordingly their locality was taken possession of by a neighbouring group of Bulthara and Panunga, who belonged to the Unchalka totem (a little grub), and in this instance these men also took care of the Churinga, leaving them undisturbed in the Ertnatulunga, the old men periodically examining them and rubbing them over with red ochre, so as to keep them in good state, just as if they were

1 it seems highly probable that the same, or at least essentially the same, totemic system exists amongst the Waagai, Kaitish and Warramunga as we know to exist among the Arunta, Luritcha and Ilpirra tribes.

In the Urabunna tribe the equivalent of the sacred stick of the Arunta is called Chimbaliri, and has the form of a plain piece of wood with each end rounded, so that it has the general form of a wooden Churinga. It differs from the latter in being very distinctly concavo-convex in section, in having no incised pattern, and in not being red-ochred. The one figured (Fig. 20) measures 67 cm. in length and 9 cm. in width. After the initiation ceremony a Chimbaliri is given to the youth to carry about until the wound is healed.

We have previously stated that one group will occasionally lend Churinga to a neighbouring and friendly group as a very special mark of good-will. It is somewhat difficult to find out the idea which is present in the native mind with respect to the lending and borrowing of Churinga beyond the fact that it is universally regarded as a most desirable thing to have possession of as large a number as possible, because

Footnotes

135:1 A remarkable custom with regard to stone Churinga may be noticed here. When a man is ill he will sometimes have a stone Churinga belonging to his totem brought from the storehouse. With the flint flake of his spear-thrower he will scrape off some of the edge of the Churinga, mix the dust with water and drink it, the mixture being supposed to be very strengthening. The idea evidently is that in some way he absorbs part of the essence of the stone, thereby gaining strength, as it is endowed with the attributes of the individual whom it represents.

137:1 Journ. Anth. Inst., May, 1885, p. 301.

138:1 In addition to this the Arumburinga of the individual (that is his spirit double) is supposed to be especially fond of paying visits to the storehouse in which the Churinga is kept, and it is feared that if the Churinga be taken away the Arumburinga will follow it, and thus the individual will lose the guardianship of the spirit.

139:1 Aritna means name, and Churinga signifies sacred or secret. The word Churinga is used either as a substantive, when it implies a sacred emblem, or as a qualifying term, when it implies sacred or secret.

139:2 During the course of the Engwura we often had occasion to notice this extreme reticence on the part of the natives. If only men of the same totemic group were present we were then able to learn the secret names, though not easily, as they would only speak in such a low whisper that it was a matter of difficulty to hear what was said. If other men were present then it was impossible to gain the information, for, when questioned, they knew absolutely nothing about the matter, and assumed an air of frigid reticence. We soon learned to know that this meant not that they were unable to reply to our questions, but that tribal custom forbade them to speak in the presence of some member of the party. When talking with them over matters such as this they would send away certain men before saying anything, and these men were those who did not belong to the totemic group about which we were inquiring.

142:1 A most valuable account of true message-sticks is given by Roth, loc. cit., p. 136.

144:1 A full account of this is given in connection with the description of the Engwura.

153:1 In another case a group of wild dogs became extinct, and at the present moment their Churinga are being taken care of in the Ertnatulunga of the witchetty grub group of Alice Springs.

158:1 It must be remembered that the term Churinga which we use is the Arunta term for these sacred objects.