turesque spots
which their country contained, had apparently selected these rocky
gorges as their central home. All around us the water-holes, gorges, and
rocky crags were peopled with spirit individuals left behind by one or
other of the following totemic ancestors:--Wollunqua, Pittongu (bat),
Wongana (crow), wild dog, emu, bandicoot, and fish, whose lines of
travel in the _alcheringa_ formed a regular network over the whole
countryside."[147]

[Sidenote: Dramatic ceremonies to commemorate the doings of ancestors.]

Similar evidence could be multiplied, but this may suffice to teach us
how to the minds of these Central Australian savages the whole country
is haunted, in the literal sense, not merely by the memories of their
dead, but by the spirits which they left behind them and which are
constantly undergoing reincarnation. And not only are the minds of the
aborigines preoccupied by the thought of their ancestors, who are
recalled to them by all the familiar features of the landscape, but they
spend a considerable part of their time in dramatically representing the
legendary doings of their rude forefathers of the remote past. It is
astonishing, we are told, how large a part of a native's life is
occupied with the performance of these dramatic ceremonies. The older he
grows, the greater is the share he takes in them, until at last they
actually absorb the greater part of his thoughts. The rites which seem
so trivial to us are most serious matters to him. They are all connected
with the great ancestors of the tribe, and he is firmly convinced that
when he dies his spirit will rejoin theirs and live in communion with
them until the time comes for him to be born again into the world. With
such solemnity does he look on the celebration of these commemorative
services, as we may call them, that none but initiated men are allowed
to witness them; women and children are strictly excluded from the
spectacle. These sacred dramas are often, though by no means always,
associated with the rites of initiation which young men have to pass
through before they are admitted to full membership of the tribe and to
participation in its deepest mysteries. The rites of initiation are not
all undergone by a youth at the same time; they succeed each other at
longer or shorter intervals of time, and at each of them he is
privileged to witness some of the solemn ceremonies in which the
traditions of the tribal ancestors are dramatically set