CIURINGA (CHURINGA, TJURUNGA). — A term designating certain sacred objects of wood or stone, on which totemic motifs are engraved or painted, used by the Australian aborigines (especially by the tribes of the central part of the continent, Arunta [= Aranda], Ilpitra, Illaura, Unmatjera, Loritia, etc.). By this term the aborigines also indicate the qualities possessed by the object.
The c. are mentioned in many myths. For example, the Arunta believed that, after death, the bodies of the totemic ancestors who had lived in the mythical age called alcheringa went underground, but that their spirit, or rather, a part of their vital power, remained joined to a natural receptacle, which could be a tree, a spring, or a c. According to another belief, the spirits of the totemic ancestors enter women, making them pregnant in order to be reborn in human form. At death, then, the spirit returns to take refuge in its natural receptacle, the c., awaiting reincarnation in another woman. When a child is born, the father, accompanied by one or more elders, therefore goes to the place where the mother believes she was made pregnant by a spirit and pretends to search for and find the c., which is immediately afterward kept in a cave or rock fissure, the sacred repository of all the c. belonging to the clan. The sacred objects are removed from this place only on the occasion of initiations or special ceremonies.
It is strictly forbidden to show the c. to women and to those who have not been initiated, under penalty of death or some other extremely severe punishment, such as blinding with burning sticks.
The designs on the c. consist of little circles, dots, curved or broken lines, concentric circles, etc.; each of these signs represents, according to the case, trees, men, mythical beings, animals, etc. To interpret them, it is necessary to consult the men of the totem to which the c. belong, since the signs and their arrangement may assume different meanings from one occasion to another. Whenever the c. are examined by the elders, they must be carefully rubbed. Naturally, the rubbing to which they have been subjected by the hands of generation after generation has greatly worn them down.