Alcheringa
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Alternative form of Alcheringa. alt-of, alternative, uncountable
"These ancestors are so intimately associated in the native mind with the animals or plants whose name they bore that an alcheringa man of, say the kangaroo totem, may be spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or as a kangaroo-man."
- 2 Synonym of Dreamtime. uncountable
"Sometimes the spirit child which goes into a woman is associated with one of the sacred Churinga, numbers of which every Alcheringa individual carried about with him or her (for in those days the women were allowed to carry them just as the men were), and then, in this case, the child has no definite name, but of course it belongs to the same totem as did the individual who had carried the Churinga about in the Alcheringa; that is, if it were a kangaroo man or woman, so of course must the child be, and then the old men determine what shall be its secret or sacred name."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"These ancestors are so intimately associated in the native mind with the animals or plants whose name they bore that an alcheringa man of, say the kangaroo totem, may be spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or as a kangaroo-man."
Etymology
Borrowed from Eastern Arrernte.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.