Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/149

III Munya, "a yam," they could not remember more than some of the mortuary totems.

The class and totem pass from mother to child, and the feminine name is formed by the postfix Gurk, as Gamutch-gurk, jalan-gurk. Thus each individual has two names when living, and after death receives another, which I have called the mortuary totem. One of my informants was Krokitch-ngaui. When he died, he would become Wurti-ngaui, which means "behind the sun," or a shadow cast behind the speaker by the sun.

The objects which are claimed by each totem are also called mir, but no one is named after them. They only belong to a person because they belong to the totem to which the person belongs. Thus one of my informants was Krokitch-ngaui, and therefore claimed Kangaroos as belonging to him. Another man of the same class and totem claimed Bunjil as belonging to him, but he is not Bunjil and does not take it for a name; he is Ngaui but not Bunjil. The true totem owns him, but he owns the sub-totem.

The system of the Buandik tribe, with the classes and totems so far as they have been ascertained, is as follows:—