But how does it happen that, instead of remaining outside of the organized society, they have become regular members of it?
This is because each individual is the double of an ancestor. Now when two beings are related as closely as this, they are naturally conceived as incorporated together; since they participate in the same nature, it seems as though that which affects one ought to affect the other as well. Thus the group of mythical ancestors became attached to the society of the living; the same interests and the same passions were attributed to each; they were regarded as associates. However, as the former had a higher dignity than the latter, this association takes, in the public mind, the form of an agreement between superiors and inferiors, between patrons and clients, benefactors and recipients. Thus comes this curious idea of a protecting genius who is attached to each individual.
The question of how this ancestor came to have relations not only with men, but also with things, may appear more embarrassing; for, at the first glance, we do not see what connection there can be between a personage of this sort and a rock or tree. But a fact which we owe to Strehlow furnishes us with a solution of this problem, which is at least probable.
These trees and rocks are not situated at any point in the tribal territory, but, for the most part, they are grouped around the sanctuaries, called ertnatulunga by Spencer and Gillen and arknanaua by Strehlow, where the churinga of the clan is kept.[886] We know the respect with which these localities are enhaloed from the mere fact that the most precious instruments of the cult are there. Each of these spreads sanctity all about it. It is for this reason that the neighbouring trees and rocks appear sacred, that it is forbidden to destroy or harm them, and that all violence used against them is a sacrilege. This sacred character is really due to a simple phenomenon of psychic contagiousness; but in order to explain it, the native must admit that these different objects have relations with the different beings in whom he sees the source of all religious power, that is to say, with the ancestors of the Alcheringa. Hence comes the system of myths of which we have spoken. They imagined that each ertnatulunga marked the spot where a group of ancestors entered into the ground. The mounds or trees which covered the ground were believed to represent their bodies. But as the soul retains, in a general way, a sort of affinity for the body in which it dwelt, they were naturally led to believe that these ancestral souls continued to frequent these places where their material envelope remained. So they were located in the rocks, the trees or the water-holes. Thus each of them, though remaining attached to some determined individual, became transformed into a sort of _genius loci_ and fulfilled its functions.[887]