Note 366 — Chapter III · SYMPATHETIC MAGIC (continued 2)

“In the Alcheringa lived ancestors who, in the native mind, are so intimately associated with the animals or plants the names of which they bear that an Alcheringa man of, say, the kangaroo totem may sometimes be spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or as a kangaroo-man. The identity of the human individual is often sunk in that of the animal or plant from which he is supposed to have originated” (Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 119).