Yet a closer examination will lead us to the conclusion that something more than, on any definition of magic, we can call magical practices, something we must recognize as religion, albeit of a low type, is not wholly wanting to the natives of Central Australia. We may perhaps grant that Twanyirika, with whose name the women and {99} uninitiate children are kept in awe, is a bugbear “to frighten babes withal,” and nothing more. The Kaitish and the Loritja, adjacent tribes sharing the general culture of the Arunta, at all events believe in the real existence of a superior being, who invented the initiation rites and is pleased when men perform them now.[99.1] Indeed, if Herr Strehlow’s investigations are to be trusted, the Arunta themselves are not destitute of belief in such a being, though we learn little about him, and he has no influence on the destinies of mankind.[99.2] Among the Warramunga, a tribe a little further to the north, the Wollunqua, a gigantic mythical snake, is the object of important rites, and one of the totem-clans is called by its name. It dwells in a certain water-hole in a lonely valley of the Murchison Range, “and there is always the fear that it may take it into its head to come out of its hiding-place and do some damage.” Hence propitiation is necessary. This is effected by building a mound of sandy earth and delineating on it a representation of the animal. “They say that when he sees the mound with his representation drawn upon it, he is gratified, and wriggles about underneath with pleasure.” On the evening of the day succeeding that on which the ceremonies in connection with this mound were witnessed by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, “the old men who had made the mound said that they had heard the Wollunqua talking, and that he was pleased with what had been done and was sending rain; the explanation of which doubtless was that they, like ourselves, had heard thunder in the distance. No rain fell, but a few days later the distant rumble of thunder was again heard at night-time; and {100} this, the old men now said, was the Wollunqua growling because the remains of the mound had been left uncovered. They also told the younger men that a heavy bank of clouds which lay on the western horizon had been placed there as a warning by the Wollunqua, and at once cut down boughs and hid the ruins of the mound from view, after which the Wollunqua ceased from growling, and all went on peacefully until the end of the series” of ceremonies.[100.1] There are, of course, myths associated with the Wollunqua. The mound recalled one of them. During its building and the ceremonies about it chants were sung referring to the deeds of the Wollunqua, breaking out from time to time into refrains of words, now at least meaningless, and said to belong to the language of the mythical past. The name Wollunqua is avoided in common parlance. A circumlocution is employed instead, “because, so they told us, if they were to call it too often by its