We pointed out that the rights of individuals to a certain tract of country had in general some vague magical character, and that they were probably always derived from some mystical relation of the individual to his birthplace or to another special spot. Now it may be added that there are hints pointing to the fact that possession of land in its real form, _i. e._ as invested in the local group, was probably based to a considerable degree on ideas of religious or magical kind. The information is unambiguous and detailed on this point as regards the Central and North-Central tribes. We know of a whole series of ideas of totemic character that bind a group of men to a given locality. How far this was valid in the other parts of the continent it is difficult to decide on the basis of the information available. But putting side by side the facts we know about the extremely large area investigated by Spencer and Gillen, with what we know of mystic individual rights in other tribes, we are justified in supposing that everywhere the rights of the local group (the only ones that present a real economic character) were the sum or resultant of such individual rights of magical or religious character, or that the group as a whole was attached by such ties to its area.[457] [457] It is impossible to enlarge here upon this interesting subject, which would require a separate study to itself. The two volumes of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen especially are full of facts, showing that the tribal traditions, the totemic cult, the initiation ceremonies, and all other magical (or religious) functions were intimately bound up with the locality in which a local group lived. The local group itself was, so to say, an offshoot of the local totem centre, the _Oknanikilla_; the "spiritual parts" of its member, closely associated each with its _Churinga_, are enshrined in the _Ertnatulunga_. That the local group is intimately connected with its territory is no wonder. Such a form of possession, although it involves an extremely strong bond of union between man and land, is evidently something quite different from more developed forms of proprietorship. Now to pass on to the main problem: to the mode of living. From the previous discussion we may infer that when the local groups are very small in themselves, then _ipso facto_ the natives live scattered in very small groups (Kurnai, probably Murring, Dieri, New South Wales tribes according to Rob. Dawson, and tribes described by Salvado).