The Arunta a Study of Stone Age People

THE ARUNTA A STUDY OF STONE AGE PEOPLE BY SIR BALDWIN SPENCER, K.C.M.G., F.R.S. AND F.J. GILLEN IN TWO VOLUMES VOL., 1 1966 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS Oosterhoot N. B. – The Netherlands /414 The Arunta To our Master SIR JAMES FRAZER This record of A Stone Age People is offered in GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION /414 page vii PREFACE AUSTRALIA is the present home and refuge of creatures, often crude and quaint, that have elsewhere passed away and given place to higher forms. This applies equally to the aboriginal as to the platypus and kangaroo. Just has the platypus laying its eggs and feebly suckling its young, reveal a mammals in the making,so does the Aboriginal show us, at least in a broad outline,what early man must have been like before he learned to read and write, domesticate animals, cultivate crops and use a metal tools. It has been possible to study in Australia human being that still remain on the culture level of men of stone age. The aim of this work is to give as complete and account as possible, based upon years of close study, of the organisation, customs, beliefs and general culture of a people that affords as much insight as we are now ever likely to gain into the manner of life of men and women who have long since disappeared in other part of the world and are now know to us only through their stone implements, with, rock drawings and more or less crude carvings, were the only imperishable records of their culture that they could leave behind them. During the course of our investigations we have come into contact with many tribes in Central Australia, living with them in their camps, watching and studying them day and night for month after month. On one occasion, for example, whilst we were working among them in 1896, four consecutive months we spend the Arunta people,without cessation, in the performance of the great,central and impressive ceremony of the tribe called Engwura. No other white men have seen this or will ever be able to do so – its performance is now a thing of the past. The results of the earlier work where published in 1899, in “The Native Tribes of Central Australia1.” Later on, in 1 - Disponible au téléchargement sur internet : http://www.archive.org/details/nativetribesofce00spenuoft /414 The Arunta 1901, we spent a year in close study again of the Arunta and, in addition, of the tribes occupying the north of Alice Spring to Newcastle Waters and eastwards to the gulf of Carpentaria, and where especially fortunate in being able to live amongst the Warramunga tribes for four months, during which we witnessed a remarkable series of ceremonies that where of the same importance as those of the Engwara amongst the Arunta, and unable us to gain an insight into the custom and beliefs of the former and other tribes in the northern central area of the continent. The results of this investigation were published, in 1904, in “The Northern Tribes of Central Australia.” In 1911 the Commonwealth Government sent a small expedition to the Northern Territory, which enable me to make a preliminary study of the tribes of the far north, not only on the mainland, but also on Barthurst and Melville Islands. After our return I was asked by the late Mr. Batchelor, then Minister for Home and Territories in the Commonwealth Government, to return to the Territory and act for a year as Special Commissioner for Aborigines and Chief Protector, in order to advise the Government in regard to the best method of dealing with the aboriginal problem. Thanks to the cordial cooperation of Mr. J. Cooper on Melville and Barthurst Islands, and of the late Mr. P. Cahill on the East Alligator River, both of whom were intimately acquainted with the natives amongst whom they lived, I was able to come into close contact with tribes in regard to whose customs and beliefs little of real importance had been recorded. In the Alligator River country, amongst the Kakadu and allied tribes, I met with certain beliefs ans customs suggestive of an alliance with the distant Arunta people and, further still, was able, amongst all these northern tribes, to show the universal existence of ideas with regard to conception that we first discovered in the Arunta. The results of these investigations were published, in 1914, in « The Native Tribes of the Northern Territory . » After the issue of our two first works, the late Rev. C. Strehlow, then in charge of the Mission Station at Hermannsburg in the Western McDonnell Ranges, became interested /414 Page : ix In the study of natives. He traversed practically the lines of inquiry followed us, and in certain matters, such, more especially, as the true meaning and significance of the Alcheta belief, arrived at conclusions different from those that we originally published. It must be remembered that Mr. Strehlow’s work, admirable as it is, was done entirely in the study and was based wholly on information gained from natives who had been, for at least twenty-five years, not only under the influence of the missionaries, but also dependent upon them. I cannot help feeling that if he had lived in the native camps out in the bush, wandering freely in and out amongst them, allowed, as we always were, to see and hear everything that went on, his conclusions in regard to fundamental matters, such as the Churinga and Alchera beliefs, would, in the main nave coincided with our own. It may be said, once more, that both Mr. Gillen and myself were always treated as fully initiated members of the Arunta tribe : we were both regarded, for some reason decided upon by the older men, as belonging to the Bultara section and the Udnirringita or witchetty grub totem. On my recent visit to the McDonnell Ranges, an old man, whom I had met in 1896 at the Engwura ceremony, greeted me, to my surprise, with the words « Unta, Yinga, Udnirringita » - that is, « You and I are Udnirringita. » After the publication of Mr. Strehlow's memoirs I decided to get into touch once more with the Arunta and revise our earlier work. The changes that have taken place in the tribe during recent years have been of so vital a nature that it would now be absolutely impossible for anyone, starting afresh, to study it adequately. Of the local group of Udnirringita people at Alice Springs, that numbered forty when we knew them in 1896, not a solitary man, woman or child remains, and this is only one of many such groups, studied by us in the early days, upon whom the same fate has fallen. There are but few of the order, unspoilt Arunta men left anywhere, and soon there will be none, and with them will pass away all knowledge of primitive customs and beliefs. The danger of trusting to information gained regarding such matters as those concerned with marriage regulation, totemic and /414 The Arunta Page : x Sacred beliefs and customs, from the surviving and younger members of the tribe that has been for years in contact with white men, can only be realised by one who has been able to study the same tribe both in its primitive and in its decadent state. By good fortune and thanks to the kindness and help of my old friends Sergeant Scott, who is now stationed at Alice Springs, and with whom I had worked many years ago in Borraloola on the Gulf of Carpentaria, I have been able to re-study the beliefs of the Arunta people. My chief informant was a native who, in 1896, was old enough to act as one of the leaders in the Engwura witnessed by Mr. Gillen and myself. He had since then learnt to speak English well and was thoroughly acquainted with the beliefs and traditions of the tribe. He himself was a Purula man of the Irriakura (a plant bulb) totem, and we had the assistance during our inquiries of an old another Oknirrabata, a head man of the Achilpa (wild cat) totem, and another oknirrabata of the Gnoilya (wild dog) totem. Any questions on which we were in doubt were discussed with two or three old men of other totems who were also regarded as Oknirrabata – that is, wise old men. I re-investigated, as carefully as possible, the Alcheta and Churinga beliefs, and realised how fortunate we had been in having the opportunity of seeing and studying, in the early days, the various initiations, Engwura, Intichiuma and other ceremonies in their entirety and primitive state. What may be called the central tradition of the tribe, dealing with the Alchera and Churinga beliefs and the origin of the totemic groups, was only known, in part, to us when we were working amongst the Arunta, thirty years ago. It is now fully described under the title of the Alchipa Tradition, and throws much fresh light on certain matters, explaining the meaning and significance of important feature in various ceremonies. These recent investigations have made it possible to re-write and amplify considerably our previous account, though in regard to matters of essential importance it was, whilst in some respects incomplete, correct in the main, so far as it went. Here can be no doubt as to the general correctness and wide distribution of the native theory of conception, as originally described by us, nor can there be any doubt that the word /414 page : xi Alchera is not applied to any Being, either mythical or actually existing.

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