The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎652v] (195/239)

164
THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION AND TOTEMISM
hand, they generally break his legs to prevent him from wandering
at night, and for the same purpose they cut gashes in his stomach,
shoulders, and lungs, and fill the gashes with stones. 7 The Turri-
bul tribe placed their dead in trees. If the deceased was a man,
they left a spear and a club near him that his spirit might kill game
for its sustenance in the future state; but if the deceased was a
woman, they laid a yam stick near her body in order that she
might dig for roots. 8 Among the Jupagalk, a person in great pain
would call on some dead friend to come and help him—that is, to
visit him in a dream, and teach him some song whereby he might
avert the evil magic that was hurting him. 8a Customs like these,
it is plain, might easily develop into a worship of the dead.
Further, the Queensland aborigines on the Tully River and
Proserpine River are wont to call on their totems by name before
they fall asleep, and they believe that they derive certain benefits
from so doing. For example, if their totem is an animal, it will
warn the man who thus invokes it of the approach of other
animals and so forth during his sleep ; or, if it is itself a dangerous
creature, such as a crocodile or a snake, it will not bite or sting
the man without serving him with due notice of its intention to
injure him. Again, if his totem is thunder or rain, the man who
fails to invoke it will lose his power of making thunder or rain at
will. 81 ’ Such beliefs and practices, it is clear, might grow into a
regular propitiation or worship of the totems. Again, the Warra-
munga of Central Australia believe in the existence of a
gigantic but wholly fabulous water-snake called Wollunqua,
the totem and ancestor of one of their clans. His home is
in a rocky gorge which runs into the heart of the Mur
chison Ranges. In this secluded spot there is a picturesque pool
of deep water with a sandy margin on the south and a little
precipice of red rock curving round the northern edge. Over these
red rocks after rain the water tumbles in a cascade into the pool
below, and the rocks are hollowed out below so that they beetle over
the water, forming a long shallow cave, from the roof of which
roots of trees, that have forced their way down through clefts,
hang pendulous. According to the natives, the Wollunqua lives
in the wuter of the pool, and the pendulous roots are his whiskers.
They have a tradition that he once came out of the pool and de
stroyed some men and women, but was at last obliged to retreat
under a shower of stones. To prevent him from repeating his
ravages they perform ceremonies by which they seem to think that
(7) A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 474.
(8) A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 470.
(8a) A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 435.
(8b) W. E. Roth, North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5 (Brisbane,
1903), § 74, pp. 20 sq.