The article draws on the association drawn by Munn between Aboriginal ancestral transformations and the moral order, and the theory of partible persons, in order to re-examine Yolngu doctrines and related practices to do with totemic ancestors and their traces, magic and sorcery, and exchange. It argues that all three broad domains draw on beliefs about intrinsic relations between part and whole, image and object, and the intrinsic powers of bodily substance and spirits of the dead. These domains imply the extension of persons in time and space, and each relates to a rather distinct aspect of the moral-political order. The article shows that the strong dichotomy drawn by Durkheim and his followers between 'religion' and 'magic' obscures the connections between these domains, and neglects the instrumental aspect of Yolngu ancestral doctrines and practices. between religion, on the one hand, and magic and sorcery, on the other, is apparent in more recent Australianist anthropology (e.g.

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Ethnographic description often involves the substitution in an anthropological metalanguage of expressions embedding one set of metaphors for indigenous expressions that incorporate quite different tropes. In this article I examine metaphors implicit in the language of “clan” and related expressions, especially the corporate “body” or “person,” “boundaries,” “segments,” and the “levels” of taxonomic hierarchy. I then show why the use of such expressions has led to anomalies in descriptions of the construction of Yolngu “Murngin” patrifilial groups. These are constituted through tropes related to ancestors, the body and plants, and connections through ancestral journeys and creative acts. [metaphor, translation, lineage theory, Murngin, Yolngu, Australian Aborigines]

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