corollary of the Arunta philosophy of reincarnation. Each Arunta child,
by that philosophy, has been in being since the Alcheringa: his mother
of the moment only reproduces him, after 'preparation.' He is not a new
thing; he is as old as the development of organic forms. This is the
Arunta belief, and I must reckon it as not more primitive than the
peculiar philosophy of reincarnation of ancestral spirits. Certainly
such an elaborate philosophy manifestly cannot be primitive. It is,
however, the philosophy of the tribes from the Urabunna, on Lake Eyre
(with female descent of the totem), to the most northerly tribes, with
male descent.

But among none of these tribes has the philosophy that extraordinary
effect on totemic institutions which, by a peculiar and isolated
addition, it possesses among the septs of the Arunta nation, and in a
limited way among the Kaitish.

Among all tribes except these the child inherits its totem: from the
mother, among the Urabunna; from the father in the northern peoples.
But, among the Arunta and Kaitish, the totem is not inherited from
either parent. According to the belief of these tribes, in every
district there is a place where the first human ancestors--in each case
all of one totem, whichsoever that totem, in each case, might happen to
be--died, 'went under the earth.' Rocks or trees arose to mark such
spots. These places are haunted by the spirits of the dead ancestors;
here they are all Grubs, there all Eagle Hawks, or all Iguanas, or all
Emus, or all Cats. Or as in these sites the ancestors left each his own
sacred stone, CHURINGA NANJA, with archaic patterns inscribed on it,
patterns now fancifully interpreted as totemic inscriptions. Such
stones are especially haunted by the ancestral souls, all desiring
reincarnation.