So the churinga, the nurtunja and the waninga owe their religious nature solely to the fact that they bear the totemic emblem. It is the emblem that is sacred. It keeps this character, no matter where it may be represented. Sometimes it is painted upon rocks; these paintings are called _churinga ilkinia_, sacred drawings.[355] The decorations with which the officiants and assistants at the religious ceremonies adorn themselves have the same name: women and children may not see them.[356] In the course of certain rites, the totem is drawn upon the ground. The way in which this is done bears witness to the sentiments inspired by this design, and the high value attributed to it; it is traced upon a place that has been previously sprinkled, and saturated with human blood,[357] and we shall presently see that the blood is in itself a sacred liquid, serving for pious uses only. When the design has been made, the faithful remain seated on the ground before it, in an attitude of the purest devotion.[358] If we give the word a sense corresponding to the mentality of the primitive, we may say that they adore it. This enables us to understand how the totemic blazon has remained something very precious for the Indians of North America: it is always surrounded with a sort of religious halo. But if we are seeking to understand how it comes that these totemic representations are so sacred, it is not without interest to see what they consist in. Among the Indians of North America, they are painted, engraved or carved images which attempt to reproduce as faithfully as possible the external aspect of the totemic animal. The means employed are those which we use to-day in similar circumstances, except that they are generally cruder. But it is not the same in Australia, and it is in the Australian societies that we must seek the origin of these representations. Although the Australian may show himself sufficiently capable of imitating the forms of things in a rudimentary way,[359] sacred representations generally seem to show no ambitions in this line: they consist essentially in geometrical designs drawn upon the churinga, the nurtunga, rocks, the ground, or the human body. They are either straight or curved lines, painted in different ways,[360] and the whole having only a conventional meaning. The connection between the figure and the thing represented is so remote and indirect that it cannot be seen, except when it is pointed out. Only the members of the clan can say what meaning is attached to such and such combinations of lines.[361] Men and women are generally represented by semicircles, and animals by whole circles or spirals,[362] the tracks of men or animals by lines of points, etc. The meaning of the figures thus obtained is so arbitrary that a single design may have two different meanings for the men of two different totems, representing one animal here, and another animal or plant there. This is perhaps still more apparent with the nurtunja and