The Australians have secret Churinga names, the Churingas apparently representing the spirits of ancestors which have returned to the totem.
A Churinga stone is dug up, which is supposed to represent another mass of manna, and this is rubbed over the boulder, and the smaller stones are also rubbed over it.
The churinga nanja of its primal ancestor is sought for at the place of the child's conception, and is put into the sacred repository of such objects.
The whole system is impossible except where descent is reckoned in the male line, for there alone is local totemism possible, and the Arunta system is based on local totemism, plus the churinga nanja and reincarnation beliefs.
This licence is absolutely confined to the limited region in which stonechuringa nanja occur.
The souls of these ancestors haunt such spots, especially they haunt the nanja tree or rock, and the stone churinga nanja.
By this means (a consequence of the unique Arunta belief about churinga nanja) the same totems have got into both exogamous moieties, so that persons of the same totem, but of appropriate matrimonial classes, may marry.
The tribal stores of churinga are not the same as the places where churinga were dropped in the Alcheringa.
Each member of the tribe is represented by her or his 'churinga nanja' in these repositories.
Plenty of churinga were dropped at different sites, and round these now hover the spirits associated with them.
Some event occurred there in the Alcheringa; the rite repeats what, in myth, was then done, and the stomachs of the men are rubbed with the churinga 'for luck.
Did the makers of the decorations in Scotland decipher the churinga as the Central Australians do now?
A man's churinga is not, to him, like the egg in which was the life of the giant in the fairy tale.
Then there is his spirit haunting, after his death, a spot where churinga of his totem were deposited.
They exactly answer to the churinga of the Arunta.
I rather regard the slate weapons as amulets, or churinga, analogous to the very old and rare boomerang-shaped churinga of the Arunta (lizard totem) of Central Australia.
The Australian stone churinga are shaped like the wooden churinga, and these are shaped like the tundun, or 'bull-roarer.
One group borrows the churinga of another with the idea that these latter will communicate some of the virtues which are in them and that their presence will quicken the vitality of the individuals and of the group (Nat.
Now in themselves, the churinga are objects of wood and stone like all others; they are distinguished from profane things of the same sort by only one particularity: this is that the totemic mark is drawn or engraved upon them.
A woman who has seen a churinga or a man who has shown one to her are both put to death.
In other words, the personality of the ancestor, his churinga and his nanja tree, are sacred things, inspiring the same sentiments and to which the same religious value is attributed.
When it stopped to camp, before scattering to hunt, the members fixed their nurtunja in the ground, from the top of which their churinga was suspended.
A very ancient churinga inspires much more respect than a new one, and is supposed to have more virtues.
Quite on the contrary, the churinga presupposes totemism, since it is essentially an instrument of the totemic cult and owes the virtues attributed to it to totemic beliefs alone.
But this same churingais related in the same way to the individual who is believed to have been conceived under the influence of this ancestor, and who is the fruit of his mystic works.
It is said that these are places where an isolated ancestor disappeared into the ground, lost a member, let some blood flow, or lost a churinga which was transformed into a tree or rock.
The sanctity of the churinga is so great that its action is even felt at a distance.
Each individual is united by a particular bond to a special churinga which assures him his life, and also to those which he has received as a heritage from his parents.
He made a sketch of this object, from memory: if found in Central Australia it would have been reckoned a churinga nanja.
They are: but I was speaking of Australian churinga nanja, of stone.
If ever they come to abandon stone implements, while retaining their magic or religion, they will keep on using their stone churinga nanja.
Spencer and Gillen, he cannot but know that churinga are not ornaments, are not all oval, but of many shapes and sizes, and that churinga larger than the 9 inch perforated stone from Dumbuck are perforated, and attached to strings.
There is a legend that, of old, men hung up the perforated churinga on the sacred Nurtunja pole: and so they still have perforated stone churinga, not usually more than a foot in length.
Munro now objects that among the objects reckoned by me as analogous to churinga is a perforated stone with an incised line, and smaller slanting side lines, said to have been found at Dumbuck; "9 inches long, 3.
Mr. Arthur Bernard Cook suggests that the pebbles of Mas d'Azil may correspond to the stone churinga nanja of the Arunta; a few of which appear to be painted, not incised.
The Kaitish have adopted the Arunta churinga nanja usage which introduces the same totem into both exogamous moieties, but, unlike the Arunta, they have not yet discarded the old universal rule, "No marriage within the totem.
The Arunta view is different; these places are burial-grounds of men all of this or that totem, who have left their churinga nanja there.
Mr. Frazer, too, as has been said, does not touch on the concomitance of stone churinga nanja with the Arunta system of acquiring totems.
No churinga nanja cause an anomaly among the Urabunna, for the churinga nanja, and the belief about them, among the Urabunna do not exist.
Thereabouts the dying ancestors deposited possessions peculiar to Aruntadom, their stone amulets, or churinga nanja, with what are now read as totemic incised marks.
The local example is found close to Alice Springs, where there are deposited a large number of churingacarried by the witchetty grub men and women.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "churinga" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
