The ownership of sacred tjurunga amongst the Arrernte groups was determined largely by "the conception site" of every individual member of a patrilineal totemic clan.
While some theorists, such as Strehlow, have suggested these relics are amongst the very few forms of property which may be owned legitimately by individual persons in Central Australia, Durkheim and Kempe contend that the tjurunga cannot be owned by an individual.