Note 105.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Thus the churinga have to the Blackfellow a more or less definitely personal aspect. It may be said that the songs chanted over them are after all merely magical spells. But the spell implies some more or less defined personality in the objects to which it is addressed. In these tribes rites are performed, called in the Arunta tongue Intichiuma, for the purpose of causing a manifestation of the power of the totem, of multiplying the totem-animal or plant, and generally of increasing the prosperity of the totem. In the course of these rites there is much singing. The members of the group invite the witchetty grubs to come from all directions and lay their eggs, or the hakea-trees to flower and their blossoms to fill with honey; they beg the rain to come and bring fish; they direct the kangaroos to go from one place to another; and so on. Even when the songs and the actions performed in the ceremonies recall the events of the mythical past, they are not necessarily more magical than the words of sacred dramas, which everywhere in the lower culture inseparably interweave what we generally speak of as magic and religion. The mighty ancestors (as elsewhere the gods) whose deeds they chant are present in the rite. “The totem, the ancestor, and the descendant (that is to say, the performer) appear in these songs as one. Without keeping in view the indivisible unity of the totem, the mythic ancestor and the offspring (ratapa), many of the songs are quite incomprehensible.”105.1 Thus where invitation or command is not issued directly to the object, the mana of the ancestors seems to be evoked for the accomplishment of the end.