The natives return to their camp with the food that they have secured, quite unconscious of the fact that the Yalmuru and Iwaiyu have been out in the bush. At night time the two latter come back again to the camp and watch the men and women. The Iwaiyu is again in the form of a little frog. When all are asleep, the two come up to the camp and enter the mia-mia where the man and his wife are sleeping. The Iwaiyu goes up and smells the man; if he be not a "right" father he says, ngari koyada, which means, not this one. He tries
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another one, finds him right and says, ngari papa, this one is my father. Then he goes and smells the latter's lubra. The Iwaiyu gets into her hair, then feels her breasts and says, korngo ngari koiyu, these are my mother's breasts; ngai koiyu, this is my mother. Then he comes down and goes into the woman. The Yalmuru returns to the old camp. Every now and then he comes and looks at the woman. but does not speak. When it is evident that the woman is going to have a child, the Yalmuru comes up to the camp at night time and tells the father that the child is there and what its name is and also its totem. He tells the father that he must not give it any other name except the one that he mentions, because that is the child within his wife.
Ungara, a Kakadu native, told us exactly what happened in his own case. When his father's brother died his benogra, or bones, were left for some time in a tree, not very far from the camp at which he died, but, later on, they were carried more than twenty miles away and placed in a Banyan tree overhanging a water pool. Ungara, who had his wife Obaiya and one child with him, was once camped near this place. He threw his chipoiyu, or net, into the water and left it there for some little time. Then he gathered long grass stalks and went into the water to drive the fish into the net. He did not know that the Yalmuru had already done this, and that the Iwaiyu was in one of the fishes. The net was so heavy that he called out to Obaiya to come and help him lift it out on to the bank. While they were doing this the Iwaiyu jumped out and was caught by the Yalmuru and then they both went back to the bones. Ungara and his wife Obaiya took the fish out and carried them to their camp in dilly bags. There were a good many other natives camped about. That night, while they were sleeping,
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the Yalmuru and Iwaiyu came into the camp and, after examining the man and woman, as previously described, the Iwaiyu went into Obaiya. While telling us this Ungara mimicked exactly the actions of the Iwaiyu going first to the father then to the mother. Later on the Yalmuru carne one night and whispered as follows in Ungara's ear; chipoiyu nanjil yapo araji, the fish went inside your net; jibul widjeru, it was full up; mukara bialilla ngeinyimma, your child was there; brau Monmuna murakamora narama, give it the name Monmuna murakamora; jereipunga kunbaritja, its totem is kunbaritja (a small fish); balera koregora onje narama koyada, by and by do not look out another name; Monmuna murakamora ngeinyimma ingordua bialilla araji, Monmuna murakamora is the child inside your lubra.
When the child is young the Yalmuru watches over it. If it strays away from camp and gets lost in the bush, the Yalmuru guides it back and, later on, when the child has grown into a man, the Yalmuru still helps it, in fact a good deal depends on the Yalmuru because, if it be not vigilant, some other hostile one may work evil magic against the individual associated with the Yalmuru's Iwaiyu. Finally, when the individual grows really old, the Yalmuru comes some night and whispers in his ear, Iwaiyu ngeinyimma bialilla unkoregora, ngainma ngeimba, parda mornda, ngainma boro mornda moiyu, ngeinyimma jereipunga koregora; which means, Iwaiyu, you look after a child, my backbone and thighs are no good, my eyes are no good and sore, you look after the Jereipunga (totem). In other words the Yalmuru is supposed to tell the Iwaiyu, that is, the spirit within the man, that he, the former, is worn out and that the Iwaiyu must take on the part of providing for a new child being born, and must also look after its totem. As the
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natives say, baranga Yalmuru wariji ge, the old Yalmuru is done for completely; Iwaiyu nigeri Yalmuru, the Iwaiyu is the new Yalmuru. It is really rather like a very crude forerunner of the theory of the continuity of the germ plasm. The old Yalmuru splits, as it were, into two, one half, the Iwaiyu, persists, the other finally disappears. In its turn the former becomes transformed into a Yalmuru which again splits; one half remains, and the other perishes, but there is an actual spiritual continuity from generation to generation.
It will be seen from the above how very definite the ideas of the Kakadu tribe are in regard both to the fact that the child enters the woman in spirit form without any reference whatever to sexual intercourse, and also to the fact that the child within the woman is the actual representative of one special individual amongst the old ancestors.
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