IDNO

LS.109153.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: "Australia.
Initiation. Engwura.
Arunta group showing totemic designs painted on the back of the ILLPONGWURRA (initiates), in charcoal, red & yellow ochre, white pipe clay & wad.
S. & G. N.T. 377." [first manuscript in ink]
"Nat. T.C.A. fig. 87. p.377." [second manuscript in ink]

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.347.ACH1: "Urliara men decorated with totemic designs around the base of the kau aua [sic kauaua]. Arunta."

Group of Illpongwurra (men passing through the Engwura ceremony) belonging to the Aranda (Arunta), sitting around the foot of the kauaua (sacred pole). Totemic designs are painted on their backs using charcoal, red and yellow ochre, white pipe clay and wad. Each man’s arm is encircled with bands of kulchia made of opossum fur-string. All are wearing waist-girdles, painted headbands and wupira (necklace made of single thick strand of well-greased and red-ochred fur string). Tufts of kangaroo-rat tail tips are hanging down from each ear.
The ground is grassy with in the back shrubs and trees. [WV 21/5/2009, from record P.347.ACH, JD 21/8/2012]

Place

Oceania Australasia; Australia; Central Australia

Cultural Affliation

Aranda [also known as Arunta; Arrarnta; Arrarnte; Arunda]

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

Publication: Image published in Baldwin Spencer, W., and F.J. Gillen, 1899. The Native Tribes of Central Australia, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd., London), p. 377, fig. 87 with the following caption:
"Totemic design painted on the backs of the Illpongwurra" [WV 2/2/2009]

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: "Engwura: A series of ceremonies attendant upon the last of the rites concerned with initiation" (Baldwin Spencer, W., and F.J. Gillen, 1899. The Native Tribes of Central Australia, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd., London), p. 648) [WV 2/2/2009]

Context: "Illpongwurra: Name applied to men passing through the Engwura ceremony. The word means not decorated with grease" (Baldwin Spencer, W., and F.J. Gillen, 1899. The Native Tribes of Central Australia, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd., London), p. 649) [WV 2/2/2009]

Context: A description of the painting of totemic designs on the back of men participating in the Engwura ceremony is given in Baldwin Spencer and Gillen:
"In the Engwura camp it was a busy and also a picturesque Scene. The leader had, during the day, consulted the older men who were especially associated with him, and it had been decided what brands should be painted on the various young men. Each brand was distinctive of some special totem, but the most striking point in connection with the painting was that the brand of any particular individual had no relationship of necessity to his own totem, or to that of the man who painted him. It was purely a matter of what the old men, and especially the leader of the Engwura, decided upon. The following cases will illustrate the point:—
A Panunga man of the snake totem decorated an Umbitchana man of the plum tree totem with a brand of the frog totem.
A Kumara man of the wild cat totem painted a Bukhara man of the emu totem with a brand of the kangaroo totem.
An Appungerta man of the witchetty grub totem painted an Umbitchana man of the wild cat totem with a brand of the Hakea totem.
A Kumara man of the little bat totem painted an Appungerta man of the bandicoot totem with a brand of the frog totem.
A Bukhara man of the wild cat totem painted a Purula man of the native pheasant totem with a brand of the same totem, this being the only instance in which a man was painted with a brand of his own totem, and the old men said that there was no special reason for its being done in this special case.
A Purula man of the emu totem painted an Uknaria man of the lizard totem with a brand of the frog totem.
For this strange want of relationship between the totems of the men who did the decorating and those who were decorated, and still more for the total absence of any between the man who was decorated and the totem with a brand of which he was decorated. we could find out no reason whatever. Certainly the natives have no idea why it is so.
The materials used in the painting were charcoal, red and yellow ochre, white pipeclay and wad. In some few cases bands of wad edged with white down were drawn on the chest, but in almost all cases the totemic brand was confined to the back, so that, as the Illpongwurra might neither speak to, nor in the presence of, their ab-moara men who were doing the painting—a rule strictly observed during the decorating— none of the men, unless they could detect it by the feel, were aware of what design they were personally branded with, though each one could of course see the brands on the other men. The arms of each man were tightly encircled with bands of kulchia made of opossum fur-string, which had been specially spun by men and women for the purpose. Every man wore his waist-girdle, and the forehead bands were painted up for the occasion. A characteristic ornament always worn on this occasion was a necklet, called wupira, consisting of a single thick strand of well-greased and red- ochred fur-string, one end of which hung down the middle of the back as far as the waist, and terminated in a little tuft of kangaroo-rat tail tips. Tufts of the latter were also suspended over either ear.
It was five o’clock in the morning before the painting was complete. Then, having shouted across to the women that all was ready, the leader of the Engwura went and broke through the middle of the Parra, and then through the line of boughs. Each of the ab-moara men then led his protégés round the Parra, all singing out "whrr, whrr," as they ran round for the last time. When all had been round, the men grouped themselves at the base of the Kauaua, and then, in perfect silence, the whole party walked in single file through the break in the Parra and the line of bushes, each ab-moara leading his own men, all linked hand in hand. It was a most picturesque scene in the early morning light, for the sun had not yet risen, as the men filed down into the sandy bed of the river, on which they formed a long string reaching across from one bank to the other. On the opposite side they halted about fifty yards from the group of women and children who were standing behind the two fires, which were now giving off dense volumes of smoke from the green bushes which had been placed on the red-hot embers. The women, bending one leg while they slightly swayed the body, and beckoned the men forwards with their hands, kept calling "kutta, kutta, kutta" First of all one ab-moara man with his Illpongwurra ran forwards, taking a semicircular course from the men towards the women, and then back again. After each of them had done this, then in turn they led their men, running, up to the fires, and on one or other of these the Illpongwurra knelt down, the Panunga and Bukhara men on the fire made by the Purula and Kumara women, and vice versa, while the women put their hands on the men's shoulders and pressed them down. In this way the performance was rapidly gone through, not a word being spoken when once the ceremony had begun, each man simply kneeling down in the smoke for at most half a minute. In less than half an hour all was over: the women remained for a short time behind their fires and then dispersed, and the men, in silence, marched back to their camp on the Engwura ground, where the newly-made Urliara grouped themselves around the Kauaua. With this the ceremonies on the Engwura ground came to a close; the Kauaua was taken down and dismantled, all traces of the blood being rubbed off; the Churinga were sorted out and returned to their respective owners.
The older men now returned to their camps, but the newly-made Urliara men had still to remain out in the bush until the performance of a ceremony at which the ban of silence between them and their ab-moara men was removed. The Engwura ground was deserted, and for months afterwards it must not be visited by women and children, to whom it was strictly ekirinja, or forbidden. (Baldwin Spencer, W., and F.J. Gillen, 1899. The Native Tribes of Central Australia, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd., London), p. 376-380) [WV 2/2/2009]