Savage religion mysterious--Why this is so--Australians in
1688--Sir John Lubbock--Roskoff--Evidence of religion--Mr.
Manning--Mr. Howitt--Supreme beings--Mr. Tylor's theory of
borrowing--Reply--Morality sanctioned--Its nature--Satirical
rite--"Our Father"--Mr. Ridley on a creator--Mr. Langloh
Parker--Dr. Roth--Conclusion--Australians' religious.
The Science of Anthropology can speak, with some confidence, on
many questions of Mythology. Materials are abundant and practically
undisputed, because, as to their myths, savage races have spoken out
with freedom. Myth represents, now the early scientific, now the early
imaginative and humorous faculty, playing freely round all objects of
thought: even round the Superhuman beings of belief. But, as to
his Religion, the savage by no means speaks out so freely. Religion
represents his serious mood of trust, dependence or apprehension.
In certain cases the ideas about superhuman Makers and judges are veiled
in mysteries, rude sketches of the mysteries of Greece, to which the
white man is but seldom admitted. In other cases the highest religious
conceptions of the people are in a state of obsolescence, are
subordinated to the cult of accessible minor deities, and are rarely
mentioned. While sacrifice or service again is done to the lower objects
of faith (ghosts or gods developed out of ghosts) the Supreme Being, in
a surprising number of instances, is wholly unpropitiated. Having all
things, he needs nothing (at all events gets nothing) at men's hands
except obedience to his laws; being good, he is not feared; or being
obsolescent (superseded, as it seems, by deities who can be bribed) he
has shrunk to the shadow of a name. Of the gods too good and great to
need anything, the Ahone of the Red Men in Virginia, or the Dendid of
the African Dinkas, is an example. Of the obsolescent god, now but a
name, the Atahocan of the Hurons was, while the "Lord in heaven" of the
Zulus is, an instance. Among the relatively supreme beings revealed only
in the mysteries, the gods of many Australian tribes are deserving of
observation.
For all these reasons, mystery, absence of sacrifice or idol, and
obsolescence, the Religion of savages is a subject much more obscure
than their mythology. The truth is that anthropological inquiry is not
yet in a position to be dogmatic; has not yet knowledge sufficient for a
theory of the Origins of Religion, and the evolution of belief from its
lowest stages and earliest germs. Nevertheless such a theory has been
framed, and has been already stated.
We formulated the objections to this current hypothesis, and observed
that its defenders must take refuge in denying the evidence as to low
savage religions, or, if the facts be accepted, must account for them
by a theory of degradation, or by a theory of borrowing from Christian
sources. That the Australians are not degenerate we demonstrated, and we
must now give reasons for holding that their religious conceptions are
not borrowed from Europeans.
The Australians, when observed by Dampier on the North-west Coast in
1688, seemed "the miserablest people in the world," without houses,
agriculture, metals, or domesticated animals.* In this condition they
still remain, when not under European influence. Dampier, we saw, noted
peculiarities: "Be it little or much they get, every one has his part,
as well the young and tender as the old and feeble, who are not able to
go abroad, as the strong and lusty". This kind of justice or generosity,
or unselfishness, is still inculcated in the religious mysteries of
some of the race. Generosity is certainly one of the native's leading
features. He is always accustomed to give a share of his food, or of
what he may possess, to his fellows. It may be, of course, objected to
this that in doing so he is only following an old-established custom,
the breaking of which would expose him to harsh treatment and to being
looked on as a churlish fellow. It will, however, be hardly denied that,
as this custom expresses the idea that, in this particular matter, every
one is supposed to act in a kindly way towards certain individuals: the
very existence of such a custom, even if it be only carried out in the
hope of securing at some time a _quid pro quo_, shows that the native is
alive to the fact that an action which benefits some one else is worthy
to be performed....
* Early Voyages to Australia, pp. 102-111. Hakluyt
Society.
It is with the native a fixed habit to give away part of what he has."*
The authors of this statement do not say that the duty is inculcated, in
Central Australia, under religious sanction, in the tribal mysteries.
This, however, is the case among the Kurnai, and some tribes of Victoria
and New South Wales.** Since Dampier found the duty practised as early
as 1688, it will scarcely be argued that the natives adopted this course
of what should be Christian conduct from their observations of Christian
colonists.
The second point which impressed Dampier was that men and women, old and
young, all lacked the two front upper teeth. Among many tribes of the
natives of New South Wales and Victoria, the boys still have their front
teeth knocked out, when initiated, but the custom does not prevail (in
ritual) where circumcision and another very painful rite are practised,
as in Central Australia and Central Queensland.
Dampier's evidence shows how little the natives have changed in two
hundred years. Yet evidence of progress may be detected, perhaps, as we
have already shown. But one fact, perhaps of an opposite bearing, must
be noted. A singular painting, in a cave, of a person clothed in a robe
of red, reaching to the feet, with sleeves, and with a kind of halo (or
set of bandages) round the head, remains a mystery, like similar figures
with blue halos or bandages, clothed and girdled. None of the figures
had mouths; otherwise, in Sir George Grey's sketches, they have a
remote air of Cimabue's work.*** These designs were by men familiar
with clothing, whether their own, or that of strangers observed by them,
though in one case an unclothed figure carries a kangaroo. At present
the natives draw with much spirit, when provided with European
materials, as may be seen in Mrs. Langloh Parker's two volumes of
_Australian Legendary Tales_. Their decorative patterns vary in
character in different parts of the continent, but nowhere do they now
execute works like those in the caves discovered by Sir George Grey. The
reader must decide for himself how far these monuments alone warrant
an inference of great degeneration in Australia, or are connected with
religion.
* Spencer and Gillen, Natives of Central Australia, p. 48.
** Howitt, Journal Anthrop. Inst., 1885, p. 310.
*** Grey's Journals of Expeditions of Discovery in North-
West and Western Australia, in the years 1837-39, vol i.,
pp. 200-263. Sir George regarded the pictures as perhaps
very ancient. The natives "chaffed" him when he asked for
traditions on the subject.
Such are the Australians, men without kings or chiefs, and what do we
know of their beliefs?
The most contradictory statements about their religion may be found
in works of science Mr. Huxley declared that "their theology is a mere
belief in the existence, powers and dispositions (usually malignant) of
ghost-like entities who may be propitiated or scared away; but no cult
can be properly said to exist. And in this stage theology is wholly
independent of ethics." This, he adds, is "theology in its simplest
condition".
In a similar sense, Sir John Lubbock writes: "The Australians have no
idea of creation, nor do they use prayers; they have no religious forms,
ceremonies or worship. They do not believe in the existence of a Deity,
nor is morality in any way connected with their religion, if it can be
so called."*
* Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 158,1870. In 1889, for
"a deity" "a true Deity".
This remark must be compared with another in the same work (1882, p.
210). "Mr. Ridley, indeed,... states that they have a traditional belief
in one supreme Creator, called Baiamai, but he admits that most of the
witnesses who were examined before the Select Committee appointed by
the Legislative Council of Victoria in 1858 to report on the Aborigines,
gave it as their opinion that the natives had no religious ideas. It
appears, moreover, from a subsequent remark, that Baiamai only possessed
'traces' of the three attributes of the God of the Bible, Eternity,
Omnipotence and Goodness".*
* Cf. J. A. I., 1872, 257-271.
Mr. Ridley, an accomplished linguist who had lived with wild blacks in
1854-58, in fact, said long ago, that the Australian _Bora_, or Mystery,
"involves the idea of dedication to God ". He asked old Billy Murri
Bundur whether men _worshipped_ Baiame at the Bora? "Of course they do,"
said Billy. Mr. Ridley, to whose evidence we shall return, was not the
only affirmative witness. Archdeacon Gunther had no doubt that Baiame
was equivalent to the Supreme Being, "a remnant of original traditions,"
and it was Mr. Guenther, not Mr. Ridley, who spoke of "traces" of
Baiame's eternity, omnipotence and goodness. Mr. Ridley gave similar
reports from evidence collected by the committee of 1858. He found the
higher creeds most prominent in the interior, hundreds of miles from the
coast.
Apparently the reply of Gustav Roskoff to Sir John Lubbock (1880) did
not alter that writer's opinion. Roskoff pointed out that Waitz-Gerland,
while denying that Australian beliefs were derived from any higher
culture, denounced the theory that they have no religion as "entirely
false". "Belief in a Good Being is found in South Australia, New South
Wales, and the centre of the south-eastern continent."* The opinion of
Waitz is highly esteemed, and that not merely because, as Mr. Max Mueller
has pointed out, he has edited Greek classical works. _Avec du Grec
on nepeut gater rien_. Mr. Oldfield, in addition to bogles and a
water-spirit, found Biam (Baiame) and Namba-jundi, who admits souls into
his Paradise, while Warnyura torments the bad under earth.** Mr. Eyre,
publishing in 1845, gives Baiame (on the Morrum-bidgee, Biam; on the
Murray, Biam-Vaitch-y) as a source of songs sung at dances, and a cause
of disease. He is deformed, sits cross-legged, or paddles a canoe. On
the Murray he found a creator, Noorele, "all powerful, and of benevolent
character," with three unborn sons, dwelling "up among the clouds".
Souls of dead natives join them in the skies. Nevertheless "the
natives, as far as yet can be ascertained, have no religious belief
or ceremonies"; and, though Noorele is credited with "the origin of
creation," "he made the earth, trees, water, etc.," a deity, or Great
First Cause, "can hardly be said to be acknowledged".***
* Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologic, vi. 794 et seq.
** Oldfield, Translations of Ethnol. Soc., iii. 208. On
this evidence I lay no stress.
*** Eyre, Journals, ii. pp. 355-358.
Such are the consistent statements of Mr. Eyre! Roskoff also cites Mr.
Ridley, Braim, Cunningham, Dawson, and other witnesses, as opposed to
Sir John Lubbock, and he includes Mr. Tylor.* Mr. Tylor, later, found
Baiame, or Pei-a-mei, no earlier in literature than about 1840, in Mr.
Hale's _United States Exploring Expedition?_ Previous to that date,
Baiame, it seems, was unknown to Mr. Threlkeld, whose early works are of
1831-1857. He only speaks of Koin, a kind of goblin, and for lack of a
native name for God, Mr. Threlkeld tried to introduce Jehova-ka-birue,
and Eloi, but failed. Mr. Tylor, therefore, appears to suppose that the
name, Baiame, and, at all events, his divine qualities, were introduced
by missionaries, apparently between 1831 and 1840.*** To this it must
be replied that Mr. Hale, about 1840, writes that "when the missionaries
first came to Wellington" (Mr. Threlkeld's own district) "Baiame was
worshipped there with songs". "These songs or hymns, _according to
Mr. Threlkeld_, were passed on from a considerable distance. It is
notorious that songs and dances are thus passed on, till they reach
tribes who do not even know the meaning of the words."****
* Roskoff, Das Religionstoesen der Rohesten Naturvolher, pp.
37-41.
** Ethnology and Philology, p. 110. 1846.
*** Tylor, The Limits of Savage Religion, J. A. I., vol.
xxi. 1892.
**** Roth, Natives of N.-W. Central Queensland, p. 117.
In this way Baiame songs had reached Wellington before the arrival of
the missionaries, and for this fact Mr. Threlkeld (who is supposed not
to have known Baiame) is Mr. Hale's authority. In Mr. Tylor's opinion
(as I understand it) the word Baiame was the missionary translation of
our word "Creator," and derived from _Baia_ "to make". Now, Mr. Ridley
says that Mr. Greenway "discovered" this _baia_ to be the root of
Baiame. But what missionary introduced the word before 1840? Not Mr.
Threlkeld, for he (according to Mr. Tylor), did not know the word, and
he tried Eloi, and Jehova-ka-biruL, while Immanueli was also tried
and also failed* Baiame, known in 1840, does not occur in a missionary
primer before Mr. Ridley's _Gurre Kamilaroi_ (1856), so the missionary
primer did not launch Baiame before the missionaries came to Wellington.
According to Mr. Hale, the Baiame songs were brought by blacks from
a distance (we know how Greek mysteries were also _colportes_ to new
centres), and the yearly rite had, in 1840, been for three years in
abeyance. Moreover, the etymology, _Baia_ "to make" has a competitor
in "Byamee = Big Man".** Thus Baiame, as a divine being, preceded the
missionaries, and is not a word of missionary manufacture, while sacred
words really of missionary manufacture do not find their way into native
tradition. Mr. Hale admits that the ideas about Baiame may "possibly" be
of European origin, though the great reluctance of the blacks to adopt
any opinion from Europeans makes against that theory.***
* Ridley, speaking of 1855. Lang's Queensland, p. 435.
** Mrs. Langloh Parker, More Australian Legendary Tales.
1898. Glossary.
*** Op. cit., p. 110.
It may be said that, if Baiame was premissionary, his higher attributes
date after Mr. Ridley's labours, abandoned for lack of encouragement
in 1858. In 1840, Mr. Hale found Baiame located in an isle of the
seas, like Circe, living on fish which came to his call. Some native
theologians attributed Creation to his Son, Burambin, the Demiurge, a
common savage form of Gnosticism.
On the nature of Baiame, we have, however, some curious early evidence
of 1844-45. Mr. James Manning, in these years, and earlier, lived "near
the outside boundaries of settlers to the south". A conversation with
Goethe, when the poet was eighty-five, induced him to study the native
beliefs. "No missionaries," he writes, "ever came to the southern
district at any time, and it was not till many years later that they
landed in Sydney on their way to Moreton Bay, to attempt, in vain,
to Christianise the blacks of that locality, before the Queensland
separation from this colony took place." Mr. Manning lost his notes
of 1845, but recovered a copy from a set lent to Lord Audley, and read
them, in November, 1882, to the Royal Society of New South Wales.
The notes are of an extraordinary character, and Mr. Manning, perhaps
unconsciously, exaggerated their Christian analogies, by adopting
Christian terminology. Dean Cowper, however, corroborated Mr. Manning's
general opinion, by referring to evidence of Archdeacon Gunther, who
sent a grammar, with remarks on "Bhaime, or Bhaiame," from Wellington to
Mr. Max Mueller. "He received his information, he told me, from some of
the oldest blacks, who, he was satisfied, could not have derived their
ideas from white men, as they had not then had intercourse with them."
Old savages are not apt to be in a hurry to borrow European notions. Mr.
Manning also averred that he obtained his information with the greatest
difficulty. "They required such secrecy on my part, and seemed so afraid
of being heard even in the most secret places, that, in one or two
cases, I have seen them almost tremble in speaking." One native, after
carefully examining doors and windows, "stood in a wooden fireplace, and
spoke in a tone little above a whisper, and confirmed what I had before
heard". Another stipulated that silence must be observed, otherwise
the European hands might question his wife, in which case he would be
obliged to kill her. Mr. Howitt also found that the name of Darumulun
(in religion) is too sacred to be spoken except almost in whispers,
while the total exclusion of women from mysteries and religious
knowledge, on pain of death, is admitted to be universal among the
tribes.* Such secrecy, so widely diffused, is hardly compatible with
humorous imposture by the natives.
There is an element of humour in all things. Mr. Manning, in 1882,
appealed to his friend, Mr. Mann, to give testimony to the excellency
of Black Andy, the native from whom he derived most of his notes, which
were corroborated by other black witnesses. Mr. Mann arose and replied
that "he had never met one aborigine who had any true belief in a
Supreme Being". On cross-examination, they always said that they had got
their information from a missionary or other resident. Black Andy was
not alluded to by Mr. Mann, who regarded all these native religious
ideas as filtrations from European sources. Mr. Palmer, on the other
hand, corroborated Mr. Manning, who repeated the expression of his
convictions.** Such, then, is the perplexed condition of the evidence.
* Howitt,.7. A. I., xiii. 193.
** Mr. Mann told a story of native magic, viewed by himself,
which might rouse scepticism among persons not familiar with
what these conjurers can do.
It may be urged that the secrecy and timidity of Mr. Manning's
informants, corresponding with Mr. Howitt's experience, makes for
the affirmative side; that, in 1845, when Mr. Manning made his notes,
missionaries were scarce, and that a native "cross-examined" by the
sceptical and jovial Mr. Mann, would probably not contradict. (Lubbock,
O. of C. p. 4.) Confidence is only won by sympathy, and one inquirer
will get authentic legends and folklore from a Celt, while another of
the ordinary English type will totally fail On this point Mr. Manning
says: "Sceptics should consider how easy it might be for intelligent
men to pass almost a lifetime among the blacks in any quarter of this
continent without securing the confidence even of the best of the
natives around them, through whom they might possibly become acquainted
with their religious secrets, secrets which they dare not reveal to
their own women at all, nor to their adult youths until the latter have
been sworn to reticence under that terrifying ceremony which my notes
describe". In the same way Mrs. Langloh Parker found that an European
neighbour would ask, "but have the blacks any legends?" and we have
cited Mr. Hartt on the difficulty of securing legends on the Amazon,
while Mr. Sproat had to live long among, and become very intimate with,
the tribes of British Columbia, before he could get any information
about their beliefs. Thus, the present writer is disinclined to believe
that the intelligence offered to Mr. Manning with shy secrecy in 1845
was wholly a native copy of recently acquired hints on religion derived
from Europeans, especially as Mr. Howitt, who had lived long among
the Kurnai, and had written copiously on them, knew nothing of their
religion, before, about 1882, he was initiated and admitted to the
knowledge like that of Mr. Manning in 1845 The theory of borrowing is
also checked by the closely analogous savage beliefs reported from North
America before a single missionary had arrived, and from Africa. For the
Australian, African and American ideas have a common point of contact,
not easily to be explained as deduced from Christianity. According,
then, to Mr. Manning, the natives believed in a being called Boyma,
who dwells in heaven, "immovably fixed in a crystal rock, with only the
upper half of a supernatural body visible". Now, about 1880, a native
described Baiame to Mr. Howitt as "a very great old man with a beard,"
and with crystal pillars growing out of his shoulders which prop up a
supernal sky. This vision of Baiame was seen by the native, apparently
as a result of the world-wide practice of crystal-gazing.* Mr. Tylor
suspects "the old man with the beard" as derived from Christian artistic
representations, but old men are notoriously the most venerated objects
among the aborigines. Turning now to Mrs. Langloh Parker's _More
Australian Legendary Tales_ (p. 90), we find Byamee "fixed to the
crystal rock on which he sat in Bullimah" (Paradise). Are we to suppose
that some savage caught at Christian teaching, added this feature of the
crystal rock from "the glassy sea" of the Apocalpyse, or from the
great white throne, and succeeded in securing wide acceptance and long
persistence for a notion borrowed from Europeans? Is it likely that the
chief opponents of Christianity everywhere, the Wirreenuns or sorcerers,
would catch at the idea, introduce it into the conservative ritual of
the Mysteries, and conceal it from women and children who are as open as
adults to missionary influence? Yet from native women and children the
belief is certainly concealed.
* J. A. I., xvi. p. 49, 60.
Mr. Manning, who prejudices his own case by speaking of Boyma as "the
Almighty," next introduces us to a "Son of God" equal to the father as
touching his omniscience, and otherwise but slightly inferior. Mr.
Eyre had already reported on the unborn sons of Noorele, "there is
no mother". The son of Boyma's name is Grogoragally. He watches over
conduct, and takes the good to Ballima (Bullimah in Mrs. Langloh
Parker), the bad to Oorooma, the place of fire (gumby). Mr. Eyre had
attested similar ideas of future life of the souls with Noorele. (Eyre,
ii. 357.) In Mrs. Langloh Parker's book a Messenger is called "the
All-seeing Spirit," apparently identical with her Wallahgooroonbooan,
whose voice is heard in the noise of the _tundun_, or bull-roarer, used
in the Mysteries.*
* More Legendary Tales, p. 86.
Grogoragally is unborn of any mother. He is represented by Mr. Manning
as a mediator between Boyma and the race of men. Here our belief is
apt to break down, and most people will think that Black Andy was a
well-instructed Christian catechumen. This occurred to Mr. Manning, who
put it plainly to Andy. He replied that the existence of names in the
native language for the sacred persons and places proved that they were
not of European origin. "White fellow no call budgery place (paradise)
'Ballima,' or other place 'Oorooma,' nor God 'Boyma,' nor Son
'Grogoragally,' only we black fellow think and call them that way in
our own language, before white fellow came into the country." A son or
deputy of the chief divine being is, in fact, found among the Kurnai and
in other tribes. He directs the mysteries. Here, then, Andy is backed by
Mr. Howitt's aboriginal friends. Their deity sanctioned morality "before
the white men came to Melbourne" (1835) and was called "Our Father" at
the same date.* Several old men insisted on this, as a matter of their
own knowledge. They were initiated before the arrival of Europeans.
Archdeacon Gunther received the same statements from old aborigines,
and Mr. Palmer, speaking of other notions of tribes of the North, is
perfectly satisfied that none of their ideas were derived from the
whites.** In any case, Black Andy's intelligence and logic are far
beyond what most persons attribute to his race. If we disbelieve him, it
must be on the score, I think, that he consciously added European ideas
to names of native origin. On the other hand, analogous ideas, not made
so startling as in Mr. Manning's Christian terminology, are found in
many parts of Australia.
* J. A., xiii. p. 192, 193,
** Op. cit., p. 290.
Mr. Manning next cites Moodgeegally, the first man, immortal, a Culture
Hero, and a messenger of Boyma's. There are a kind of rather mediaeval
fiends, Waramolong, who punish the wicked (murderers, liars and breakers
of marriage laws) in Gumby. Women do not go to Ballima, Boyma being
celibate, and women know nothing of all these mysteries; certainly this
secrecy is not an idea of Christian origin. If women get at the secret,
the whole race must be exterminated, men going mad and slaying each
other. This notion we shall see is corroborated. But if missionaries
taught the ideas, women must know all about them already. Mr. Manning's
information was confirmed by a black from 300 miles away, who called
Grogoragally by the name of Boymagela. There are no prayers, except
for the dead at burial: corroborated by Mrs. Langloh Parker's beautiful
Legend of Eerin. "Byamee," the mourners cry, "let in the spirit of Eerin
to Bullimah. Save him from Eleanbah wundah, abode of the wicked. For
Eerin was faithful on earth, faithful to the laws you left us!"* The
creed is taught to boys when initiated, with a hymn which Mr. Manning's
informant dared not to reveal. He said angrily that Mr. Manning already
knew more than any other white man. Now, to invent a hymn could not have
been beyond the powers of this remarkable savage, Black Andy. The "Sons"
of Baiame answer, we have seen, to those ascribed to Noorele, in Mr.
Eyre's book. They also correspond to Daramulun where he is regarded as
the son of Baiame, while the Culture Hero, Moodgeegally, founder of the
Mysteries, answers to Tundun, among the Kurnai.** We have, too, in
Australia, Dawed, a subordinate where Mangarrah is the Maker in the
Larrakeah tribe.***
* More Australian Tales, p. 96.
** Howitt, J. A. /., 1885, p. 313.
*** J. A. I., Nov., 1894, p. 191.
In some cases, responsibility for evil, pain, and punishment, are
shifted from the good Maker on to the shoulders of his subordinate.
This is the case, in early Virginia, with Okeus, the subordinate of
the Creator, the good Ahone.* We have also, in West Africa, the
unpropitiated Nyankupon, with his active subordinate, who has human
sacrifices, Bobowissi;** and Mulungu, in Central Africa, "possesses many
powerful servants, but is himself kept a good deal behind the scenes of
earthly affairs, like the gods of Epicurus".*** The analogy, as to the
Son, interpreter of the divine will, in Apollo and Zeus (certainly not
of Christian origin!) is worth observing. In the Andaman Islands, Mr.
Mann, after long and minute inquiry from the previously un-contaminated
natives, reports on an only son of Puluga, "a sort of archangel," who
alone is permitted to live with his father, whose orders it is his duty
to make known to the _moro-win_, his sisters, ministers of Puluga, the
angels, that is, inferior ministers of Puluga's will.****
* William Strachey, Hakluyt Society, chapter vii., date,
1612.
** Ellis, Religion of the Tshi-speaking Races.
*** Macdonald, Africana, vol. i. p. 67.
****J. A. I., xii. p. 158.
It is for science to determine how far this startling idea of the Son
is a natural result of a desire to preserve the remote and somewhat
inaccessible and otiose dignity of the Supreme Being from the exertion
of activity; and how far it is a savage refraction of missionary
teaching, even where it seems to be anterior to missionary influences,
which, with these races, have been almost a complete failure. The
subject abounds in difficulty, but the sceptic must account for
the marvellously rapid acceptance of the European ideas by the most
conservative savage class, the doctors or sorcerers; for the admission
of the ideas into the most conservative of savage institutions, the
Mysteries; for the extreme reticence about the ideas in presence of the
very Europeans from whom they are said to have been derived; and in
some cases for the concealment of the ideas from the women, who, one
presumes, are as open as the men to missionary teaching. It is very
easy to talk of "borrowing," not so easy to explain these points on the
borrowing theory, above all, when evidence is frequent that the ideas
preceded the arrival of Christian teachers.
On this crucial point, the question of borrowing, I may cite Mr. Mann as
to the Andamanese beliefs. Mr. Mann was for eleven years in the islands,
and for four years superintended our efforts to "reclaim" some natives.
He is well acquainted with the South Andaman dialect, and has made
studies of the other forms of the language. This excellent witness
writes: "It is extremely improbable that their legends were the result
of the teaching of missionaries or others". They have no tradition of
any foreign arrivals, and their reputation (undeserved) as cannibals,
with their ferocity to invaders, "precludes the belief" that any one
ever settled there to convert or instruct them. "Moreover, to regard
with suspicion, as some have done, the genuineness of such legends
argues ignorance of the fact that numerous other tribes, in equally
remote or isolated localities, have, when first discovered, been found
to possess similar traditions on the subject under consideration,"
Further, "I have taken special care not only to obtain my information
on each point from those who are considered by their fellow tribesmen
as authorities, but [also from those] who, from having had little or no
intercourse with other races, were in entire ignorance regarding any
save their own legends," which, "they all agree in stating, were
handed down to them by their first parent, To-mo, and his immediate
descendants".* What Mr. Mann says concerning the unborrowed character
of Andaman beliefs applies, of course, to the yet more remote and
inaccessible natives of Australia.
In what has been, and in what remains to be said, it must be remembered
that the higher religious ideas attributed to the Australians are not
their only ideas in this matter. Examples of their wild myths have
already been offered, they are totemists, too, and fear, though they do
not propitiate, ghosts. Vague spirits unattached are also held in dread,
and inspire sorcerers and poets,** as also does the god Bunjil.***
* J. A. I., xii. pp. 156, 157.
** Ibid.y xvi., pp. 330, 331. On Bunjil.
*** In Folk-Lore, December, 1898, will be found an essay,
Mr. Hartland, on my account of Australian gods. Instancing
many wild or comic myths (some of them unknown to me when I
wrote 'The Making of Religion'), Mr. Hartland seems to argue
that these destroy the sacredness of other coexisting native
beliefs of a higher kind. But, on this theory, what religion
is sacred? All have contradictory myths. See
Introduction.
Turning from early accounts of Australian religion, say from 1835 to
1845, we look at the more recent reports. The best evidence is that
of Mr. Howitt, who, with Mr. Fison, laid the foundations of serious
Australian anthropology in _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_ (1881). In 1881,
Mr. Howitt, though long and intimately familiar with the tribes of
Gippsland, the Yarra, the Upper Murray, the Murumbidgee, and other
districts, had found no trace of belief in a moral Supreme
Being. He was afterwards, however, initiated, or less formally let into
the secret, by two members of Brajerak (wild) black fellows, not of
the same tribe as the Kurnai. The rites of these former aborigines are
called Kuringal. Their supreme being is Daramulun "believed in from the
sea-coast across to the northern boundary claimed by the Wolgal, about
Yass and Gundagai, and from Omeo to at least as far as the Shoalhaven
River.... He was not, as it seems to me, everywhere thought to be a
malevolent being, but he was dreaded as one who could severely punish
the trespasses committed against these tribal ordinances and customs,
whose first institution is ascribed to him.... It was taught also that
Daramulun himself watched the youths from the sky, prompt to punish by
sickness or death the breach of his ordinances." These are often mere
taboos; an old man said: "I could not eat Emu's eggs. _He_ would be
very angry, and perhaps I should die." It will hardly be argued that
the savages have recently borrowed from missionaries this conception of
Daramulun, as the originator and guardian of tribal taboos. Opponents
must admit him as of native evolution in that character at least. The
creed of Daramulun is not communicated to women and children. "It is
said that the women among the Ngarego and Wolgal knew only that a great
being lived beyond the sky, and that he was spoken of by them as Papang
(Father). This seemed to me when I first heard it to bear so suspicious
a resemblance to a belief derived from the white men, that I thought it
necessary to make careful and repeated inquiries. My Ngarego and Wolgal
informants, two of them old men, strenuously maintained that it was so
before the white men came." They themselves only learned the doctrine
when initiated, as boys, by the old men of that distant day. The name
Daramulun, was almost whispered to Mr. Howitt, and phrases were used
such as "He," "the man," "the name I told you of". The same secrecy was
preserved by a Woi-worung man about Bunjil, or Pund-jel, "though he
did not show so much reluctance when repeating to me the 'folk-lore' in
which the 'Great Spirit' of the Kulin plays a part". "He" was used,
or gesture signs were employed by this witness, who told how his
grandfather had warned him that Bunjil watched his conduct from a star,
"he can see you and all you do down here,"--"before the white men came
to Melbourne." (1835).*
* J. A. I.f xiii, 1884, pp. 192, 193.
Are we to believe that this mystic secrecy is kept up, as regards white
men, about a Being first heard of from white men? And is it credible
that the "old men," the holders of tribal traditions, and the most
conservative of mortals, would borrow a new divinity from "the
white devils," conceal the doctrine from the women (as accessible to
missionary teaching as themselves), adopt the new Being as the founder
of the antique mysteries, and introduce him into the central rite? And
can the natives have done so steadily, ever since about 1840 at least?
To believe all this is to illustrate the credulity of scepticism.
Mr. Howitt adds facts about tribes "from Twofold Bay to Sydney, and as
far west, at least, as Hay". Here, too, Daramulun instituted the rites;
his voice is heard in the noise of the whirling _mudji_ (bull-roarer).
"The muttering of thunder is said to be his voice 'calling to the rain
to fall, and make the grass grow up green'." Such are "the very words of
Umbara, the minstrel of the tribe".*
At the rites, respect for age, for truth, for unprotected women and
married women, and other details of sexual morality, is inculcated
partly in obscene dances. A magic ceremony, resembling mesmeric passes,
and accompanied by the word "Good" (_nga_) is meant to make the boys
acceptable to Daramulun. A temporary image of him is made on raised
earth (to be destroyed after the rites), his attributes are then
explained. "This is the Master (Biamban) who can go anywhere and do
anything."** An old man is buried, and rises again. "This ceremony is
most impressive." "The opportunity is taken of impressing on the mind
of youth, in an indelible manner, those rules of conduct which form the
moral law of the tribe." "There is clearly a belief in a Great Spirit,
or rather an anthropomorphic Supernatural Being, the Master of All,
whose abode is above, the sky, and to whom are attributed powers
of omnipotence and omnipresence, or, at any rate, the power to do
anything and go anywhere.... To his direct ordinance are attributed the
social and moral laws of the community." Mr. Howitt ends, "I venture to
assert that it can no longer be maintained that [the Australians]
have no belief which can be called religious--that is, in the sense of
beliefs which govern tribal and individual morality under a supernatural
sanction".***
* J. A. I., 1884, p. 446.
** Op. cit., p. 453.
*** J. A. I., 1884, p. 459.
Among the rites is one which "is said to be intended to teach the boys
to speak the straightforward truth, and the kabos (mystagogues) thus
explain it to them ".*
It is, perhaps, unfortunate that Mr. Howitt does not give a full account
of what the morality thus sanctioned includes. Respect for age, for
truth, for unprotected women, and for nature (as regards avoiding
certain unnatural vices) are alone spoken of, in addition to taboos
which have no relation to developed morality. Mr. Palmer, in speaking
of the morality inculcated in the mysteries of the Northern Australians,
adds to the elements of ethics mentioned by Mr. Howitt in the south,
the lesson "not to be quarrelsome". To each lad is given, "by one of the
elders, advice so kindly, fatherly and impressive, as often to soften
the heart, and draw tears from the youth".**
* J. A. 1., xiii. 444.
** Ibid., xlii 296.
So far, the morality religiously sanctioned is such as men are likely
to evolve, and probably no one will maintain that it must have been
borrowed from Europeans. It is argued that the morality is only such as
the tribes would naturally develop, mainly in the interests of the
old (the ruling class) and of social order (Hart-land, _op. cit_. pp.
316-329). What else did any one ever suppose the _mores_ of a people
to be, _plus_ whatever may be allowed for the effects of kindliness,
or love, which certainly exists? I never hinted at morals divinely and
supernormally revealed. All morality had been denied to the Australians.
Yet in the religious rites they are "taught to speak the straightforward
truth"! As regards women, there are parts of Australia where disgusting
laxity prevails, except in cases prohibited by the extremely complex
rules of forbidden degrees. Such parts are Central Australia and
North-west Central Queensland.*
Another point in Mr. Howitt's evidence deserves notice. He at first
wrote "The Supreme Being who is believed in by all the tribes I refer to
here, either as a benevolent or more frequently as a malevolent being,
it seems to me represents the defunct headman ". We have seen that Mr.
Howitt came to regard "malevolence" as merely the punitive aspect of the
"Supreme Being ". As to the theory that such a being represents a dead
headman, no proof is anywhere given that ghosts of headmen are in any
way propitiated. Even "corpse-feeding" was represented to Mr. Dawson
by intelligent old blacks, as "white fellows' gammon".** Mrs. Langloh
Parker writes to me that she, when she began to study the blacks, "had,
I must allow, a prejudice in favour of Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory--it
seemed so rational, but, accepting my savages' evidence, I must discard
it". As to "offerings of food to the dead," Mrs. Langloh Parker found
that nothing was offered except food "which happened to be in the
possession of the corpse," at his decease.
For these reasons it is almost inconceivable that the "Supreme Being"
should "represent a dead headman," as to dead men of any sort no tribute
is paid. Mr. Howitt himself appears to have abandoned the hypothesis
that Daramulun represents a dead headman, for he speaks of him as the
"Great Spirit," or rather an "anthropomorphic Supernatural Being",***
* Spencer and Gillen, and Roth.
** Dawson, Aborigines of Australia.
*** J. A. I., 1884, p. 458.
A Great Spirit might, conceivably, be developed out of a little spirit,
even out of the ghost of a tribesman. But to the conception of a
"supernatural anthropomorphic being," the idea of "spirit" is not
necessary. Men might imagine such an entity before they had ever dreamed
of a ghost.
Having been initiated into the secrets of one set of tribes, Mr. Howitt
was enabled to procure admission to those of another group of "clans,"
the Kurnai. For twenty-five years the Jeraeil, or mystery, had been
in abeyance, for they are much in contact with Europeans. The old men,
however, declared that they exactly reproduced (with one confessed
addition) the ancestral ceremonies. They were glad to do it, for their
lads "now paid no attention either to the words of the old men, or to
those of the missionaries".*
*J. A. I.,1885, p. 304.
This is just what usually occurs. When we meet a savage tribe we destroy
the old bases of its morality and substitute nothing new of our own.
"They pay no attention to the words of the missionaries," but loaf,
drink and gamble like station hands "knocking down a cheque ".
Consequently a rite unknown before the arrival of Europeans is now
introduced at the Jeraeil. Swift would have been delighted by this
ceremony. "It was thought that the boys, having lived so much among the
whites, had become selfish and no longer willing to share that which
they obtained by their own exertions, or had given to them, with their
friends." The boys were, therefore, placed in a row, and the initiator
or mystagogue stooped over the first boy, and, muttering some words
which I could not catch, he kneaded the lad's stomach with his hands.
This he did to each one successively, and by it the Kurnai supposed the
"greediness" (------) "of the youth would be expelled".*
* Op. cit., pp. 310, 311.
So far from unselfishness being a doctrine borrowed by the Kurnai from
Christians, and introduced into their rites, it is (as we saw in
the case of the Arunta of Central Australia) part of the traditional
morality--"the good old ancestral virtues," says Mr. Howitt--of the
tribes. A special ceremony is needed before unselfishness can be
inspired among blacks who have lived much among adherents of the Gospel.
Thus "one satiric touch" seems to demonstrate that the native ethics are
not of missionary origin.
After overcoming the scruples of the old men by proving that he really
was initiated in the Kuringal, Mr. Howitt was admitted to the central
rite of the Kurnai "showing the Grandfather". The essence of it is that
the _mystae_ have their heads shrouded in blankets. These are snatched
off, the initiator points solemnly to the sky with his throwing
stick (which propels the spears) and then points to the Tundun, or
bull-roarer. This object (------) was also used in the Mysteries of
ancient Greece, and is still familiar in the rites of savages in all
quarters of the world.
"The ancestral beliefs" are then solemnly revealed. It seems desirable
to quote freely the "condensed" version of Mr. Howitt. "Long ago there
was a great Being called Mungan-ngaur." Here a note adds that Mungan
means "Father," and "ngaur" means "Our".
"He has no other name among the Kurnai. In other tribes the Great
Supreme Being, besides being called 'father,' has a name, for example
Bunjil, Baiame, Daramulun." "This Being lived on the earth, and taught
the Kurnai... all the arts they know. He also gave them the names they
bear. Mungan-gnaur had a son" (the Sonship doctrine already noticed by
Mr. Manning) "named Tundun (the bull-roarer), who was married, and who
is the direct ancestor--the Weintwin or father's father--of the Kurnai.
Mungan-ngaur instituted the Jeraeil (mysteries) which was conducted by
Tundun, who made the instruments" (a large and a small bull-roarer, as
also in Queensland) "which bear the name of himself and his wife.
"Some tribal traitor impiously revealed the secrets of the Jeraeil to
women, and thereby brought down the anger of Mungan upon the Kurnai. He
sent fire which filled the wide space between earth and sky. Men went
mad, and speared one another, fathers killing their children, husbands
their wives, and brethren each other." This corroborates Black Andy.
"Then the sea rushed over the land, and nearly all mankind were drowned.
Those who survived became the ancestors of the Kurnai.... Tundun and his
wife became porpoises" (as Apollo in the Homeric hymn became a dolphin),
"Mungan left the earth, and ascended to the sky, where he still
remains."*
* Op. cit., pp. 313, 314.
Here the Son is credited with none of the mediatorial attributes in Mr.
Manning's version, but universal massacre, as a consequence of revealing
the esoteric doctrine, is common to both accounts.
Morals are later inculcated.
1. "To listen to and obey the old men.
2. "To share everything they have with their friends.
3. "To live peaceably with their friends.
4. "Not to interfere with girls or married women.
5. "To obey the food restrictions until they are released from them by
the old men." [As at Eleusis.]
These doctrines, and the whole belief in Mungan-ngaur, "the Kurnai
carefully concealed from me," says Mr. Howitt, "until I learned them
at the Jeraeil".* Mr. Howitt now admits, in so many words, that
Mungan-ngaur "is rather the beneficent father, and the kindly though
severe headman of the whole tribe.... than the malevolent wizard".... He
considers it "perhaps indicative of great antiquity, that this identical
belief forms part of the central mysteries of a tribe so isolated as the
Kurnai, as well as of those of the tribes which had free communication
one with another".
As the morals sanctioned by Mungan-ngaur are simply the extant tribal
morals (of which unselfishness is a part, as in Central Australia),
there seems no reason to attribute them to missionaries--who are quite
unheeded. This part of the evidence may close with a statement of Mr.
Howitt's: "Beyond the vaulted sky lies the mysterious home of that great
and powerful Being who is Bunjil, Baiame, or Dara-mulun in different
tribal languages, but who in all is known by a name, the equivalent of
the only one used by the Kurnai, which is Mungan-ngaur, Our Father".**
* Op. cit. 321, note 3
** J. A. I., xvi. 64.
Other affirmative evidence might be adduced. Mr. Ridley, who wrote
primers in the Kamilaroi language as early as in 1856 (using Baiame for
God), says: "In every part of Australia where I have conversed with the
aborigines, they have a traditional belief in one Supreme Creator,"
and he wonders, as he well may, at the statement to the contrary in the
_Encyclopedia Britannica_, which rests solely on the authority, of Dr.
Lang, in Queensland. Of names for the Supreme Being, Mr. Ridley gives
Baiame, Anamba; in Queensland, Mumbal (Thunder) and, at Twofold Bay,
"Dhu-rumbulum, which signifies, in the Namoi, a sacred staff, originally
given by Baiame, and is used as the title of Deity".*
By "staff" Mr. Ridley appears to indicate the Tundun, or bull-roarer.
This I venture to infer from Mr. Matthews' account of the Wiradthuri
(New South Wales) with whom Dhuramoolan is an extinct bugbear, not
answering to Tundun among the Kurnai, who is subordinate, as son, to
Mungan-ngaur, and is associated with the mystic bull-roarer, as is
Gayandi, the voice of the Messenger of Baiame, among Mrs. Langloh
Parker's informants.** In one tribe, Dara-mulun used to carry off and
eat the initiated boys, till he was stopped and destroyed by Baiame.
This myth can hardly exist, one may suppose, among such tribes as
consider Daramulun to preside over the mysteries.
* J. A. I., ii. (1872), 268, 270.
** Ibid., xxv. 298.
Living in contact with the Baiame-worshipping Kamilaroi, the Wiradthuri
appear to make a jest of the power of Daramulun, who (we have learned)
is said to have died, while his "spirit" dwells on high.* Mr. Green way
also finds Turramulan to be subordinate to Baiame, who "sees all, and
knows all, if not directly, through Turramulan, who presides at the
Bora.... Turramulan is mediator in all the operations of Baiame upon
man, and in all man's transactions with Baiame. Turramulan means "leg on
one side only," "one-legged". Here the mediatorial aspect corroborates
Mr. Manning's information.** I would suggest, _periculo meo_, that
there may have been some syncretism, a Baiame-worshipping tribe adopting
Daramulun as a subordinate and mediator; or Baiame may have ousted
Daramulun, as Zeus did Cronos.
Mr. Ridley goes on to observe that about eighteen years ago (that is, in
1854) he asked intelligent blacks "if they knew Baiame". The answer was:
"Kamil zaia zummi Baiame, zaia winuzgulda," "I have not seen Baiame,
I have heard or perceived him". The same identical answer was given in
1872 "by a man to whom I had never before spoken". "If asked who made
the sky, the earth, the animals and man, they always answer 'Baiame'."
Varieties of opinion as to a future life exist. All go to Baiame, or
only the good (the bad dying eternally), or they change into birds!***
* J. A. I., xii. 194.
** Ibid., vii. 242.
*** Ibid., ii. 269.
Turning to North-west Central Queensland we find Dr. Roth (who knows
the language and is partly initiated) giving Mul-ka-ri as "a benevolent,
omnipresent, supernatural being. Anything incomprehensible." He offers
a sentence: "Mulkari tikkara ena" = "Lord (who dwellest) among the sky".
Again: "Mulkari is the supernatural power who makes everything which the
blacks cannot otherwise account for; he is a good, beneficent person,
and never kills any one". He initiates medicine men. His home is in the
skies. He once lived on earth, and there was a culture-hero, inventing
magic and spells. That Mulkari is an ancestral ghost as well as a
beneficent Maker I deem unlikely, as no honours are paid to the dead.
"Not in any way to refer to the dead appears to be an universal
rule among all these tribes."* Mulkari has a malignant opposite or
counterpart.
Nothing is said by Dr. Roth as to inculcation of these doctrines at the
Mysteries, nor do Messrs. Spencer and Gillen allude to any such being
in their accounts of Central Australian rites, if we except the
"self-existing" "out of nothing" Ungambikula, sky-dwellers.
One rite "is supposed to make the men who pass through it more kindly,"
we are not told why.** We have also an allusion to "the great spirit
Twangirika," whose voice (the women are told) is heard in the noise of
the bull-roarer.***
* Roth, pp. 14, 36, 116, 153,158, 165.
** Spencer and Gillen, p. 369.
*** Ibid., p. 246.
"The belief is fundamentally the same as that found in all Australian
tribes," write the authors, in a note citing Tundun and Daramulun. But
they do not tell us whether the Arunta belief includes the sanction, by
Twangirika, of morality. If it does not, have the Central Australians
never developed the idea, or have they lost it? They have had quite as
much experience of white men (or rather much more) than the believers in
Baiame or Bunjil, "before the white men came to Melbourne," and, if one
set of tribes borrowed ideas from whites, why did not the other?
The evidence here collected is not exhaustive. We might refer to
Pirnmeheal, a good being, whom the blacks loved before they were taught
by missionaries to fear him.*
* Dawson, The Australian Aborigines.
Mr. Dawson took all conceivable pains to get authentic information,
and to ascertain whether the belief in Pirnmeheal was pre-European. He
thinks it was original. The idea of "god-borrowing" is repudiated by
Manning, Gunther, Ridley, Green-way, Palmer, Mrs. Langloh Parker
and others, speaking for trained observers and (in several cases) for
linguists, studying the natives on the spot, since 1845. It is thought
highly improbable by Mr. Hale (1840). It is rejected by Waitz-Gerland,
speaking for studious science in Europe. Mr. Howitt, beginning with
distrust, seems now to regard the beliefs described as of native origin.
On the other hand we have Mr. Mann, who has been cited, and the great
authority of Mr. E. B. Tylor, who, however, has still to reply to the
arguments in favour of the native origin of the beliefs which I have
ventured to offer. Such arguments are the occurrence of Baiame before
the arrival of missionaries; the secrecy, as regards Europeans, about
ideas derived (Mr. Tylor thinks) from Europeans; the ignorance of the
women on these heads; the notorious conservatism of the "doctors"
who promulgate the creed as to ritual and dogma, and the other
considerations which have been fully stated. In the meanwhile I venture
to think, subject to correction, that, while Black Andy may have
exaggerated, or Mr. Manning may have coloured his evidence by Christian
terminology, and while mythical accretions on a religious belief are
numerous, yet the lowest known human race has attained a religious
conception very far above what savages are usually credited with, and
has not done so by way of the "ghost-theory" of the anthropologists. In
this creed sacrifice and ghost-worship are absent.*
It has seemed worth while to devote space and attention to the
Australian beliefs, because the vast continent contains the most
archaic and backward of existing races. We may not yet have a sufficient
collection of facts microscopically criticised, but the evidence here
presented seems deserving of attention. About the still more archaic
but extinct Tasmanians and their religion, evidence is too scanty, too
casual, and too conflicting for our purpose.**
* These Australian gods are confusing.
1. Daramulun is supreme among the Coast Murring. J. A. I.,
ziv. 432-459.
2. Baiame is supreme, Daramulun is an extinct bugbear,
among the Wiradthuri. J. A. I., xxv. 298.
3. Baiame is supreme, Daramulun is "mediator," among the
Kamilaroi. J. A. I., vii. 242.
** See Ling Roth's _Tasmanians_.