IDNO

LS.109106.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: "Australia.
Intichiuma Ceremonies (Arunta tribe).
Group of Arunta [male symbol] of Emu totem standing round the churinga ILPINTIRA, which is drawn on the ground.
(B & S. N.T. 179)." [first manuscript in ink]
"Nat. T.C.A. (cf.fig. 29. p.181)." [second manuscript in ink]

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.335.ACH1: "Churinga Ilpiutira [sic Ilpintira] of Emu Intichiuma ceremony Arunta."

Group of Aranda (Arunta) men, belonging to the Emu Totem and standing around the Churinga Ilpintira design for the Intichiuma ceremony. The ground has been prepared with a layer of blood from the attending men, and a totem design of the emu has been drawn on with white clay, red and yellow ochre and black charcoal. The men standing around the drawing are all wearing full beards. Some show cicatrisation across the chest and abdomen. They are decorated on the chest with white down lain out in linear patterns on the chest with a circle. Some are wearing feathers in their hair.
The landscape in the background appears to consists of trees. [WV 27/1/2009]

Place

Oceania Australasia; Australia; Central Australia

Cultural Affliation

Arunta

Named Person

Photographer

Baldwin Spencer, Walter; or Gillen, Francis James

Collector / Expedition

Baldwin Spencer, Walter [Spencer and Gillen 'Arunta' Fieldwork, Summer 1896 - 1897]

Date

?November 1896 - ?February 1897

Collection Name

Teaching Slide CollectionHaddon Unmounted Collection

Source

?Haddon, Alfred Cort (Dr)

Format

Lantern Slide Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Expedition: Note in Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1927. The Arunta. A Study of a Stone Age People (Macmillan, London), Vol. I , on p. vii states that Baldwin Spencer and Gillen spent four consecutive months with the Aranda (Arunta) people in 1896. The results of this stay were first published in 1899, in the "Native Tribes of Central Australia." [WV 10/2/2009]

Photographer: Note in Baldwin Spencer, W. and F. J. Gillen, 1927, p. xiii states all photos were taken by the authors. [WV 23/1/2009]

Context: The Erlia or emu Totem ceremony is described in Baldwin Spencer, W., and F.J. Gillen, 1899. The Native Tribes of Central Australia, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd., London), p. 179-185 as follows:
"We have already described the returning of the emu Churinga to the Strangway Range men by the members of another group to which they had been lent, and the following ceremony was performed upon this occasion. As is always the case, the decision to hold the Intichiuma was arrived at by the Alatunja. He and a few other men, amongst whom were his two sons, first of all cleared a small level plot of ground, sweeping aside all stones, tussocks of grass and small bushes, so as to make it as smooth as possible. Then several of the men, the Alatunja and his two sons amongst them, each opened a vein in their arms, and allowed the blood to stream out until the surface of a patch of ground, occupying a space of about three square yards, was saturated with it. The blood was allowed to dry, and in this way a hard and fairly impermeable surface was prepared, on which it was possible to paint a design. This is the only occasion on which we have known of any such method being adopted. With white pipe clay, red and yellow ochre, and powdered charcoal mixed with grease, the sacred design of the emu totem was then outlined on the ground. In this particular case, when the design was for the special occasion drawn on the ground, it was called an Ilpintira, which is simply one of the Ilkinia or totemic designs drawn under these conditions. The drawing was done by the Alatunja, his blood brothers, and two sons. It is supposed to represent certain parts of the emu; two large patches of yellow indicated lumps of fat, of which the natives are very fond, but the greater part represented, by means of circles and circular patches, the eggs in various stages of development, some before and some after laying. Small circular yellow patches represented the small eggs in the ovary; a black patch surrounded by a black circle was a fully-formed egg ready to be laid; while two larger concentric circles meant an egg which has been laid and incubated, so that a chicken has been formed. In addition to these marks, various sinuous lines, drawn in black, red, and yellow, indicate parts of the intestines, the excrement being represented by black dots. Everywhere over the surface, in and amongst the various drawings, white spots indicated the feathers of the bird, the whole device being enclosed by a thin line of pale pink down. It will be noticed that this design differs in important respects from others associated with the sacred objects of the totem. The latter, such as the designs on the Churinga, have no definite relationship, and no attempt at any resemblance to the objects which they are supposed to indicate, but in this drawing, though it is to a certain extent conventionalised, still we can see very clearly that an attempt is made to actually represent the objects. The large yellow patches representing fat, the small yellow circles the eggs in the ovary, and the patches with enclosing circles, eggs with shells, serve to show that the original designer had a definite idea of making the drawing, conventional though it be to a large extent, indicative of the objects which it is supposed to represent.
During the day, and in fact throughout the whole ceremony, the Alatunja was treated with the greatest deference; no one spoke to him except in a whisper, and he it was who regulated the whole proceedings, even down to the minutest detail.
The drawing, or Churinga ilpintira, was completed before the arrival of the messengers bearing the borrowed Churinga, and, when done, it was carefully concealed from view with branches. After the Churinga had been returned with the formalities already detailed, the Alatunja informed the visitors of his intention to perform Intichiuma, and, rising from the ground, he led the way, carrying the Churinga, to the spot close by where the Ilpintira was concealed. He removed the boughs, and, placing the Churinga on one side, squatted down, all the rest of the men following his example. In the intervals of a monotonous chant, which lasted for half an hour, he explained the different parts of the drawing, which was then again covered up and the men returned to the original meeting place, where, for the rest of the night, they chanted, sitting round the Churinga." [Wonu Veys 28/1/2009]