Note 905 — Chapter IX · THE IDEA OF SPIRITS AND GODS

Nat. Tr., pp. 390-391. Strehlow calls these evil spirits Erintja; but this word is evidently equivalent to Oruncha. Yet there is a difference in the ways the two are presented to us. According to Spencer and Gillen, the Oruncha are malicious rather than evil; they even say (p. 328) that the Arunta know no necessarily evil spirits. On the contrary, the regular business of Strehlow's Erintja is to do evil. Judging from certain myths given by Spencer and Gillen (Nat. Tr., p. 390), they seem to have touched up the figures of the Oruncha a little: these were originally ogres (ibid., p. 331).