Returning to his tmara marakirna (great camp) at Lamburkna, Numbakulla carved a cavelike storehouse in the rock and surrounded it with gum tree boughs. He did this in preparation for the creation of the first ancestors of humans. The process begins with the making of churingas, objects imprinted with signs associated with totem groups. When Numbakulla later made the churingas he would put them in the rock cave (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 356). The time and place associated with Numbakulla, the original ancestor, and his various first creations is called alchera. The cave where the churingas were to be stored was called the pertalchera, the rock of the alchera (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 357).
Before the churingas could be made, Numbakulla had first to make the ilpintiras, the signs that would be imprinted on the churingas. On the floor of the pertalchera, Numbakulla painted a churinga-ilpintira, a sign for the churinga of a totem group, or knanj. This first churinga-ilpintira was for the achilpa knanj, or wild cat totem. He painted another achilpa churinga-ilpintira on the ground outside the pertalchera. In the center of it, he raised a pole called kauwa-auwa. Numbakulla then made the first churinga for the achilpa totem. He did this by marking a rock or other object with the achilpa churinga-ilpintira, the sign of the wildcat totem. He placed in this first achilpa churinga the kuruna (soul or spirit) of the first Achilpa man, and placed this churinga on the churinga-ilpintira in the Pertalchera cave. Out of the churinga came Inkata Achilpa Maraknirra, the first Achilpa man, who was called inkata (leader) and maraknirra (very great).
Numbakulla then manifested many more kurunas, souls, from within himself. Each kuruna was connected with an original churinga, one for each knanj (totem group): achilpa (wildcat), erlia (emu), arura (kangaroo), etc. Numbakulla gave these original churingas to Inkata Achilpa Maraknirra, and also taught him the ceremonies for each totem group. Inkata Achilpa Maraknira carried the original churingas to the totem places (knani-killa) previously designated by Numbakulla. In each original churinga there was the kuruna of an inkatat oknirra, a headman, as well as many additional churingas and kurunas. These original churingas are called churinga indulla-irrakura. After the headman for a totem group appeared from a churinga in a specific place, he would make use of the churingas and kurunas in the churinga indulla-irrakura to make more people. He would also use churingas and kurunas stored in his own body (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 361).
The origin of males and females is explained as follows. The original stone churingas of the totem groups were split in two, making pairs. These pairs were tied together. Spencer and Gillen (1927, p. 359) say, “One Churinga of each pair had an atua or man’s spirit, the other an arragutja or woman’s. Each Churinga had also an aritna churinga, or sacred name, associated with it and its Kuruna and all these names were given, originally, by Numbakulla. Later on, the Kurunas emanated from the Churinga and gave rise to men and women, each of whom bore as his or her sacred name, the one given to the Churinga by Numbakulla.” Neither Numbakulla nor the original Achilpa Inkata Maraknirra, or the first forefathers of the totem groups had mates, but all subsequent kurunas were manifested in male and female pairs (Spencer and Gillen 1927, pp.
361–362).
A child is born after a kuruna enters a woman. The kuruna will have existed previously in another body, and the old men of the totem group have ways of telling which kuruna has reincarnated into the group (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 103). About the birth process, W. E. H. Stanner says in his paper “The Dreaming” (1956), “The means by which, in aboriginal understanding, a man fathers a child, is not by sexual intercourse, but by the act of dreaming about a spirit-child. His own spirit, during a dream,
‘finds’ a child and directs it to his wife, who then conceives. Physical congress between a man and a woman is contingent, not a necessary prerequisite” (Lessa and Vogt 1958, p. 515).
The churinga from which the kuruna (soul) of the child came remains in the pertalchera of the child’s original totem group. A double of the kuruna, called the arumburinga, remains with the churinga in the pertalachera. The arumburinga can travel outside the pertalchera and sometimes goes to visit its embodied kuruna double. The embodied kuruna is called ulthana. At death, the ulthana kuruna goes to the churinga in the pertalchera in which it was originally placed in the original time, alchera (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 103).
The relationships between soul, body, and churinga are complex, as is the language related to these relationships. The word aradugga (or aradukka) refers to the physical birth of a child from the womb. The word knailjalugga refers to the kuruna or soul coming out of the churinga. In the birth process, a kuruna leaves the churinga and enters the body of the woman who is to be its mother. In the body of the mother, the kuruna receives its own body, which is called mberka (Spencer and Gillen
1927, p. 358). The kuruna is said to be small, like a tiny pebble, and colored red.The body of the child within the womb is called ratappa (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 363).
At the end of a person’s life, two spirit brothers called Inchinkina, who normally exist as stars in the heavens, come down to earth to hasten the person’s death (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 429). Another evil spirit called Eruncha sometimes helps them. If the dead person tries to rise from the grave, Eruncha forces him back (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p.430).
The embodied kuruna soul (called ulthana) remains with the body of the dead person for some time, watching over it in its burial mound until the final burial ceremony is performed. Sometimes the ulthana is with the body in the grave, sometimes it is observing the relatives of the deceased, and sometimes it is visiting with its spirit double, the arumburinga, which stays with the person’s churinga in the pertalchera (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 432).