Others have to make the rain to fall or
to render other services to the community. In short, among the
tribes of Central Australia the headmen are public magicians.
Further, their most important function is to take charge of the
sacred storehouse, usually a cleft in the rocks or a hole in the
ground, where are kept the holy stones and sticks (_churinga_) with
which the souls of all the people, both living and dead, are
apparently supposed to be in a manner bound up. Thus while the
headmen have certainly to perform what we should call civil duties,
such as to inflict punishment for breaches of tribal custom, their
principal functions are sacred or magical.
When we pass from Australia to New Guinea we find that, though the
natives stand at a far higher level of culture than the Australian
aborigines, the constitution of society among them is still
essentially democratic or oligarchic, and chieftainship exists only
in embryo. Thus Sir William MacGregor tells us that in British New
Guinea no one has ever arisen wise enough, bold enough, and strong
enough to become the despot even of a single district.
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