CHURINGA (TJURUNGA). - Term used to designate certain sacred objects of wood or stone, on which totemic motifs are carved or painted, used by the Australian aborigines (especially by the tribes of the center of the continent, Arunta [= Aranda], Ilpitra, Illaura, Unmatjera, Loritia, etc.). With this term the aborigines also designate the qualities possessed by the object.
The c. are spoken of in many myths. For example, the Arunta believed that the bodies of the totemic ancestors who lived in the mythical epoch called alcheringa went underground after death, but their spirit, or rather, a part of their vital power remained united to a natural receptacle that could be a tree, a spring or a c. According to another belief, the spirits of the totemic ancestors penetrate into women, make them pregnant so as to be reborn thus in human form. At death, then, the spirit returns to take refuge in its natural receptacle, the c., awaiting reimpregnation in another woman. When a child is born, the father, accompanied by some elders, therefore goes to the place where the mother believes she was made pregnant by a spirit and makes a show of searching for and finding the c., which is, immediately afterward, kept in a cave or in a rocky crevice, the sacred repository of all the c. of the clan. From this place the sacred objects are removed only on the occasion of initiations or of particular ceremonies.
It is severely forbidden to show the c. to women and to those who are not initiated, under penalty of death or of another most grave punishment, such as blinding by means of burning sticks.
The designs of the c. consist of small circles, dots, curved or broken lines, concentric circles, etc.: each of these signs represents, according to the case, trees, men, mythical beings, animals, etc. For their interpretation it is necessary to resort to the men of the totem to which the c. belong, since the signs and their arrangement can assume a different meaning each time. Every time the c. are examined by the elders they must be rubbed with care. Naturally the rubbing to which they have been subjected by the hands of generations and generations has greatly worn them away.
Bibliography7 works
Tullio Tentori