The Euahlayi Tribe by K Langloh Parker

A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia





CONTENTS




INTRODUCTION
I.    INTRODUCTORY
II.   THE ALL FATHER, BYAMEE
III.  RELATIONSHIPS AND TOTEMS
IV.   THE MEDICINE MEN
V.    MORE ABOUT THE MEDICINE MEN AND LEECHCRAFT
VI.   OUR WITCH WOMAN
VII.  BIRTH--BETROTHAL--AN ABORIGINAL GIRL FROM INFANCY TO WOMANHOOD
VIII. THE TRAINING OF A BOY UP TO BOORAH PRELIMINARIES
IX.   THE BOORAH AND OTHER MEETINGS
X.    CHIEFLY AS TO FUNERALS AND MOURNING
XI.   SOMETHING ABOUT STARS AND LEGENDS
XII.  THE TRAPPING OF GAME
XIII. FORAGING AND COOKING
XIV.  COSTUMES AND WEAPONS
XV.   THE AMUSEMENTS OF BLACKS
XVI.  BUSH BOGIES AND FINIS



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
By one of the Euahlayi Tribe (Omitted from etext)

A NATIVE CARRYING A MESSAGE-STICK
TWO NATIVES READY FOR A CORROBOREE
THE FUNERAL OF A NATIVE. A BARK COFFIN
A NATIVE SINGING TO HIS OWN ACCOMPANIMENT
A NATIVE GRINDING GRASS SEED ON A DAYOORL-STONE
A NATIVE WITH SHIELD AND WADDY IN FRONT OF HIS CAMP





INTRODUCTION



No introduction to Mrs. Langloh Parker's book can be more than that
superfluous 'bush' which, according to the proverb, good wine does not
need. Our knowledge of the life, manners, and customary laws of many
Australian tribes has, in recent years, been vastly increased by the
admirable works of Mr. Howitt, and of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. But
Mrs. Parker treats of a tribe which, hitherto, has hardly been
mentioned by anthropologists, and she has had unexampled opportunities
of study. It is hardly possible for a scientific male observer to be
intimately familiar with the women and children of a savage tribe. Mrs.
Parker, on the other hand, has had, as regards the women and children
of the Euahlayi, all the advantages of the squire's wife in a rural
neighbourhood, supposing the squire's wife to be an intelligent and
sympathetic lady, with a strong taste for the study of folklore and
rustic custom. Among the Zulus, we know, it is the elder women who tell
the popular tales, so carefully translated and edited by Bishop
Colenso. Mrs. Parker has already published two volumes of Euahlayi
tales, though I do not know that I have ever seen them cited, except by
myself, in anthropological discussion. As they contain many beautiful
and romantic touches, and references to the Euahlayi 'All Father,' or
paternal 'super man,' Byamee, they may possibly have been regarded as
dubious materials, dressed up for the European market. Mrs. Parker's
new volume, I hope, will prove that she is a close scientific observer,
who must be reckoned with by students. She has not scurried through the
region occupied by her tribe, but has had them constantly under her
eyes for a number of years.

My own slight share in the book as it stands ought to be mentioned.
After reading the original MS., I catechised Mrs. Parker as to her
amount of knowledge of the native language; her methods of obtaining
information; and the chances that missionary influence had affected the
Euahlayi legends and beliefs. I wrote out her answers, and she read and
revised what I had written. I also collected many scattered notices of
Byamee into the chapter on that being, which Mrs. Parker has read and
approved. I introduced a reference to Mr. Howitt's theory of the 'All
Father,' and I added some references to other authorities on the
Australian tribes. Except for this, and for a very few purely verbal
changes in matter of style, Mrs. Parker's original manuscript is
untouched by me. It seems necessary to mention these details, as I
have, in other works, expressed my own opinions on Australian religion
and customary law.[MAKING OF RELIGION, second edition; MYTH, RITUAL, AND
RELIGION, second edition.] These opinions I have not, so to speak, edited
into the work of Mrs. Parker. The author herself has remarked that,
beginning as a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer in regard to the
religious ideas of the Australians--according to that writer, mere
dread of casual 'spirits'--she was obliged to alter her attitude, in
consequence of all that she learned at first hand. She also explains
that her tribe are not 'wild blacks,' though, in the absence of
missionary influences, they retain their ancient beliefs, at least the
old people do; and, in a decadent form, preserve their tribal
initiations, or Boorah. How she tested and controlled the evidence of
her informants she has herself stated, and I venture to think that she
could hardly have made a better use of her opportunities.

In one point there is perhaps, almost unavoidably, a lacuna or gap in
her information. The Euahlayi, she says, certainly do not possess the
Dieri and Urabunna

custom of Pirrauru or Piraungaru, by which married, and unmarried men,
of the classes men and women which may intermarry, are solemnly
allotted to each other as more or less permanent paramours.[See
Mr. Howitt's NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, and my
SECRET OF THE TOTEM, chapter iii.] That custom, for some unknown reason,
is confined to certain tribes possessing the two social divisions with the
untranslated names MATTERI and KIRARU. These tribes range from Lake Eyre
southward, perhaps, as far as the sea. Their peculiar custom is unknown to
the Euahlayi) but Mrs. Parker does not inform us concerning any recognised
licence which may, as is usual, accompany their Boorah assemblies, or
their 'harvest home' of gathered grass seed, which she describes.

Any reader of Mrs. Parker's book who has not followed recent
anthropological discussions, may need to be apprised of the nature of
these controversies, and of the probable light thrown on them by the
full description of the Euahlayi tribe. The two chief points in dispute
are (1) the nature and origin of the marriage laws of the Australians;
and (2) the nature and origin of such among their ideas and practices
as may be styled 'religious.' As far as what we commonly call material
civilisation is concerned, the natives of the Australian continent are
probably the most backward of mankind, having no agriculture, no
domestic animals, and no knowledge of metal-working. Their weapons and
implements are of wood, stone, and bone, and they have not even the
rudest kind of pottery. But though the natives are all, in their
natural state, on or about this common low level, their customary laws,
ceremonials, and beliefs are rich in variety.

As regards marriage rules they are in several apparently ascending
grades of progress. First we have tribes in which each person is born
into one or other of two social divisions usually called 'phratries.'
Say that the names of the phratries mean Eagle Hawk and Crow. Each

born Crow must marry an Eagle Hawk; each born Eagle Hawk must marry a
Crow. The names are derived through the mothers. One obvious result is
that no two persons, brother and sister maternal, can intermarry; but
the rule also excludes from intermarriage great numbers of persons in
no way akin to each other by blood, who merely share the common phratry
name, Crow or Eagle Hawk.

In each phratry are smaller sets of persons, each set distinguished by
the name of some animal or other natural object, their 'totem.' The
same totem is never found in both phratries. Thus a person marrying out
of his or her phratry, as all must do, necessarily marries out of his
or her totem.

The same arrangements exist among tribes which derive phratry and totem
names through the father.

This derivation of names and descent through the father is regarded by
almost all students, and by Mr. J. G. Frazer, in one passage of his
latest study of the subject, as a great step in progress.['The Beginnings
of Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines,' FORTMIGHTLY
REVIEW, September 1905, p. 452.] The obvious result of paternal descent is
to make totem communities or kins local. In any district most of the
people will be of the same paternal totem name--say, Grub, Iguana, Emu,
or what not. Just so, in Glencoe of old, most of the people were MacIans;
in Appin most were Stewarts; in South Argyll Campbells, and so on.

The totem kins are thus, with paternal descent, united both by supposed
blood ties in the totem kin, and by associations of locality. This is
certainly a step in social progress.

But while Mr. Frazer, with almost all inquirers, acknowledges this, ten
pages later in his essay he no longer considers the descent of the
totem in the paternal line as necessarily 'a step in progress' from
descent in the maternal line. 'The common assumption that inheritance
of the totem through the mother always preceded inheritance of it through
the father need not hold good,'[IBID. p. 462.] he remarks.

Thus it appears that a tribe has not necessarily made 'a great step in
progress,' because it reckons descent of the totem on the male side. If
this be so, we cannot so easily decide as to which tribe is socially
advanced and which is not.

In any case, however, there is a test of social advance. There is an
acknowledged advance when a tribe is divided into, not two, but four or
eight divisions, which may not intermarry.[IBID. p. 454] The Euahlayi have
four such divisions. In each of their intermarrying phratries are two
'Matrimonial Classes,' each with its name, and these are so constituted
that a member of the elder generation can never marry a member of the
succeeding generation. This rule prevents, of course, marriage between
parent and child, but such marriages never do occur in the pristine
tribes of the Darling river which have no such classes. The four-class
arrangement excludes from intermarriage all persons, whether parents
and children or not, who bear the same class name, say Hippai.

Among the central and northern tribes, from the Arunta of the
Macdonnell hills to the Gulf of Carpentaria, the eight-class rule
exists, and it is, confessedly, the most advanced of all.

In this respect, then, the Arunta of the centre of Australia are
certainly more advanced than the Euahlayi. The Arunta have eight, not
four, intermarrying classes. In the matter of rites and ceremonies,
too, they are, in the opinion of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, more
advanced than, say, the Euahlayi. They practise universal 'subincision'
of the males, and circumcision, in place of the more primitive knocking
out of the front teeth. Their ceremonies are very prolonged: in Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen's experience, rites lasted for four months during a
great tribal gathering. That the Arunta could provide supplies for so
prolonged and large an assembly, argues high organisation, or a region
well found in natural edible objects. Yet the region is arid and barren,
so the organisation is very high. For all these reasons, even if we do not
regard paternal descent of the totem as a step in progress from maternal
descent, the Arunta seem greatly advanced in social conditions.

Yet they are said to lack entirely that belief in a moral and kindly
'All Father,' such as Byamee, which Mrs. Parker describes as potent
among the less advanced Euahlayi, and which Mr. Howitt has found among
non-coastal tribes of the south-east, with female descent of the totem,
but without matrimonial classes--that is, among the most primitive tribes
of all.

Here occurs a remarkable difficulty. Mr. Howitt asserts, with Mr.
Frazer's concurrence, that (in Mr. Frazer's words) 'the same regions in
which the germs of religion begin to appear have also made some
progress towards a higher form of social and family life.'['The Beginnings
of Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines,' Fortnightly
Review, September 1905, p. 452.] But the social advance from maternal to
paternal descent of the totem, we have seen, is not necessarily an advance
at all, in Mr. Frazer's opinion.[ IBID. p. 462.] The Arunta, for example,
he thinks, never recognised female descent of
the totem. They have never recognised, indeed, he thinks, any
hereditary descent of the totem, though in all other respects, as in
hereditary magistracies, and inheritance of the right to practise the
father's totemic ritual, they do reckon in the male line. By such
advantage, however it was acquired, they are more progressive than,
say, the Euahlayi. But, progressive as they are, they have not, like
the more pristine tribes of the south-east, developed 'the germs of
religion,' the belief in a benevolent or ruling 'All Father.' Unlike
the tribes of the south-east, they have co-operative totemic magic.
Each totem community does magic for its totem, as part of the food
supply of the united tribe. But the tribe, though so SOLIDAIRE, and
with its eight classes and hereditary magistracies so advanced, has
developed no germs of religion at all. Arunta progress has thus been
singularly unequal.

The germs of religion are spoken of as the results of social advance,
but, while so prominent in social advance, the Arunta have no trace of
religion. The tribes northward from them to the sea are also very
advanced socially, but (with one known exception not alluded to by Mr.
Frazer) have no 'All Father,' no germ of religion.

From this fact, if correctly reported, it is obvious that social
progress is not the cause, nor the necessary concomitant, of advance in
religious ideas.

Again, the influence of the sea, in causing a 'heavier rainfall, a more
abundant vegetation, and a more plentiful supply of food,' with an
easier and more reflective life than that of 'the arid wilderness of
the interior,' cannot be, as is alleged, the cause of the germs of
religion.[IBID. p. 463.] If this were the case, the coastal tribes of the
Gulf of Carpentaria and of the north generally would have developed the
All Father belief. Yet, in spite of their coastal environment, and richer
existence, and social advance, the northern coastal tribes are not
credited with the belief in the All Father. Meanwhile tribes with no
matrimonial classes, and with female descent of the totem--tribes
dwelling from five to seven hundred miles away from the southern sea--do
possess the All Father belief as far north as Central Queensland, no
less than did the almost or quite extinct tribes of the south coast,
who had made what is (or is not) 'the great step in progress' of
paternal descent of the totem.

Again, arid and barren as is the central region tenanted by the Arunta,
it seems to permit or encourage philosophic reflection, for their
theory of evolution is remarkably coherent and ingenious. The theory of
evolution implies as much reflection as that of creation! Their magic
for the behoof of edible objects is attributed to the suddenness of
their first rains,[IBID. p. 465.] and the consequent outburst of life,

which the natives attribute to their own magical success. But
rainmaking magic, as Mrs. Langloh Parker shows, is practised with
sometimes amazing success among the Euahlayi, who work no magic at all
for their totems. Their magic, if it brings rain, benefits their totems
at large, but for each totem in particular, no Euahlayi totem kin does
magic.

Again, agricultural magic has been, and indeed is, practised in Europe,
in conditions of climate unlike those of the Arunta; and totemic magic
is freely practised in North America, in climatic conditions dissimilar
from those of Central Australia.

For all these reasons I must confess that I do not follow the logic of
the philosophy which makes social advance the cause of the belief in
the All Father, and coastal rains the cause of social advance. The
Arunta have the social advance, the eight classes, the relatively high
organisation; but they have neither the climatic conditions supposed to
produce the advance, nor the religion which the advance is supposed to
produce. The northern coastal tribes, again, have the desired climatic
conditions, and the social advance, but they have not the germs of
religion found in many far inland southern tribes, like the Euahlayi,
whose social progress is extremely moderate. We thus find, from the
northern coast to the centre, one supposed result of coastal
conditions, namely, social progress, but not the other supposed result
of coastal conditions, namely, the All Father belief. I do not say that
it does not exist, for it is a secret belief, but it is not reported by
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. On the other hand, among tribes of the
south-east very far from the coast, we find the lowest grades of social
progress, but we also find the All Father belief. I am ready, of
course, to believe that good conditions of life beget progress, social
and religious, as a general rule. But other causes exist; speculation
anywhere may take crudely scientific rather than crudely religious
lines. Especially the belief in ancestral spirits may check or nullify
the belief in a remote All Father. We see this among the Zulus, where
spirits entirely dominate religion, and the All Father is, at most, the
shadow of a name, Unkulunkulu. We may detect the same influence among
the northern tribes of Australia, where ancestral spirits dominate
thought and society, though they receive no sacrifice or prayer.
Meanwhile, if we accept Mrs. Parker's evidence, among the Euahlayi
ancestral spirits are of no account in religion) while the All Father
is obeyed, and, on some occasions, is addressed in prayer; and may even
cause rain, if property approached by a human spirit which has just
entered his mansions. Clearly, climatic causes and natural environment
are not the only factors in producing and directing the speculative
ideas of men in early society.

We must also remember that the neighbours of the Arunta, northwards,
who share certain peculiar Arunta ideas, possess, beyond all doubt,
either the earliest germs of belief in the All Father, or that belief
in a decadent condition of survival. This is quite certain; for,
whereas the Arunta laugh at all inquiries as to what went before the
'Alcheringa,' or mythic age of evolution, the Kaitish, according to
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, aver that an anthropomorphic being, who
dwells above the sky, and is named Atnatu, first created himself, and
then 'made the Alcheringa,'--the mythic age of primal evolution. Of
mankind, some, in Kaitish opinion, were evolved; of others Atnatu is
the father. He expelled men to earth from his heaven for neglect of his
ceremonies, but he provided them with weapons and all that they
possess. He is not TROS FERRO SUR LA MORALE: he has made no MORAL laws,
but his ritual laws, as to circumcision and the whirling of the
bull-roarer, must be observed as strictly as the ritual laws of Byamee
of the Euahlayi. In this sense of obedience due to a heavenly father
who begat men, or some of them, punished them, and started them on
their terrene career, laying down ceremonial rules, we have certainly
'the germs of religion' in a central tribe cognate to the Arunta.

Mr. Frazer detects only two traces of religion in the centre, omitting
the Kaitish Atnatu, ['The Beginnings of Religion and Totemism among the
Australian Aborigines,' FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, September 1905, p. 452,
Note 1.] but I am unable to see how the religious aspect of Atnatu,
non-moral as it is, can be overlooked. He is the father of part of the
tribe, and all are bound to, observe his ceremonial rules. He accounts for
the beginning of the beginning; he is the cause of the Alcheringa; men owe
duties to him. We do not know whether he was once as potent in their
hearts, and as moral as Byamee, but has DOGRINGOLO under Arunta
philosophic influences; or whether Byamee is a more highly evolved form of
Atnatu. But it is quite certain that the Kaitish, in a region as far
almost from the north sea as that of the Arunta, and further from southern
coastal influences than the Arunta, have a modified belief in the All
Father. How are we to account for this on the philosophic hypothesis of
Oceanus as the father of all the gods; of coastal influences producing a
richer life, and causing both social and religious progress?

Another difficulty is that while the Arunta, with no religion, and the
Kaitish, with the Atnatu belief, are socially advanced in organisation
(whether we reckon male descent of the totem 'a great step in
progress,' or an accident), they are yet supposed by Mr. Frazer to be,
in one respect, the least advanced, the most primitive, of known human
beings. The reason is this: the Arunta do not recognise the processes
of sexual union as the cause of the production of children. Sexual
acts, they say, merely prepare women for the reception of original
ancestral spirits, which enter into them, and are reincarnated and
brought to the birth.

If the women cannot accept the spirits without being 'prepared' by
sexual union, then sexual union plays a physical part in the generation
of a spirit incarnated, a fact which all believers in the human soul
are as ready as the Arunta to admit. If the Arunta recognise the
prior necessity of ' preparation,' then they are not so ignorant as
they are thought to be; and their view is produced, not so much by
stark ignorance, as by their philosophy of the eternal reincarnation of
primal human spirits. The Arunta philosophers, in fact, seem to
concentrate their speculation on a point which puzzled Mr. Shandy. How
does the animating principle, or soul, regarded as immaterial, clothe
itself in flesh? Material acts cannot effect the incarnation of a
spirit. Therefore, the spirit enters women from without, and is not the
direct result of human action.

The south-eastern tribes, with female descent of the totem, and with no
belief in the universal and constant reincarnation of ancestral
spirits, take the 'schylean view, according to Mr. Howitt, that the
male is the sole originating cause of children, while the female is
only the recipient and 'nurse.' These tribes, socially less advanced
than the Arunta, have not the Arunta nescience of the facts of
procreation, a nescience which I regard as merely the consequence and
corollary of the Arunta philosophy of reincarnation. Each Arunta child,
by that philosophy, has been in being since the Alcheringa: his mother
of the moment only reproduces him, after 'preparation.' He is not a new
thing; he is as old as the development of organic forms. This is the
Arunta belief, and I must reckon it as not more primitive than the
peculiar philosophy of reincarnation of ancestral spirits. Certainly
such an elaborate philosophy manifestly cannot be primitive. It is,
however, the philosophy of the tribes from the Urabunna, on Lake Eyre
(with female descent of the totem), to the most northerly tribes, with
male descent.

But among none of these tribes has the philosophy that extraordinary
effect on totemic institutions which, by a peculiar and isolated
addition, it possesses among the septs of the Arunta nation, and in a
limited way among the Kaitish.

Among all tribes except these the child inherits its totem: from the
mother, among the Urabunna; from the father in the northern peoples.
But, among the Arunta and Kaitish, the totem is not inherited from
either parent. According to the belief of these tribes, in every
district there is a place where the first human ancestors--in each case
all of one totem, whichsoever that totem, in each case, might happen to
be--died, 'went under the earth.' Rocks or trees arose to mark such
spots. These places are haunted by the spirits of the dead ancestors;
here they are all Grubs, there all Eagle Hawks, or all Iguanas, or all
Emus, or all Cats. Or as in these sites the ancestors left each his own
sacred stone, CHURINGA NANJA, with archaic patterns inscribed on it,
patterns now fancifully interpreted as totemic inscriptions. Such
stones are especially haunted by the ancestral souls, all desiring
reincarnation.

When a woman becomes aware of the life of the child she bears, among
the Arunta and Kaitish, she supposes that a local spirit of the local
totem has entered her, and her child's totem is therefore the totem of
that locality, whatever other totems she and her husbands may own. The
stone amulet of the ancestral spirit, WHO IS THE CHILD, is sought; if
it cannot be found at the spot, a wooden CHURINGA is made to represent
it, and it is kept carefully in a sacred storehouse.

Even in the centre and north, where the belief in reincarnation
prevails, this odd manner of acquiring totems is only practised by the
Arunta tribes and the Kaitish, and only among them are the inscribed
stones known to exist as favoured haunts of ancestral spirits desiring
incarnation. The other northern tribes believe in reincarnation, but
not in the haunted sacred stones, which they do not, north of the
Worgaia, possess; nor do they derive totems from locality, but, as
usual, by inheritance.

It thus appears that these Arunta sacred stones are an inseparable
accident of the Arunta method of acquiring the totem. How they and the
faith in them cause that method is not obvious, but the two things--the
haunted sacred stone, and the local source of totems--are
inseparable--that is, the former never is found apart from the latter.
Now such stones, with the sense and usage attached to them, cannot well
be primitive. They are the result of the peculiar and strictly isolated
Arunta custom and belief, which gives to each man and woman one of
these stones, the property of himself or herself, since the mythical
age, through all reincarnations.

One cannot see how such an unique custom and belief, associated with
objects of art, can be reckoned primitive. Yet, where such stones do
not exist, the usage of acquiring totems by locality does not exist;
even where the belief in reincarnation and in local centres haunted by
totemic spirits is found in North Australia.[For an hypothesis of the
origin of the CHURINGA NANJA belief, see my SECRET OF THE TOTEM,
chapter iv.]

On these grounds it appears that the hereditary totem is the earlier,
and that the Arunta usage is the result of the special and inseparable
superstition about the sacred stones. It may be a relatively recent
complication of and addition to the theory of reincarnation. Meanwhile,
the belief and usage produce an unique effect. The Arunta and Kaitish,
we saw, are so advanced socially that they possess not two, or four,
but eight matrimonial classes. The tribe is divided into two sets of
four classes each, and no person in A division (nameless) of four
classes may marry another person of any one of these four, but must
marry a person of a given class among the four in B division
(nameless). The succession to the class is hereditary in the mate line.
But any person among the Arunta, contrary to universal custom
elsewhere, may marry another person of his or her own totem, if that
person be in the right class of the opposite division. Nowhere else can
a person of division A and totem Grub find a Grub to marry in the
opposite division B. But this is possible among the Arunta and Kaitish,
because their totems are acquired by pure accident, are not hereditary,
and all totems exist, or may exist, in division A and also in division B.

Mr. Frazer argues that the Arunta is the earlier state of affairs. He
supposes that men acquired their totems, at first, by local accident,
before they had laid any restrictions on marriage. Later, they divided
their tribe, first into two, then into four, then into eight classes;
and every one had to marry out of his class, or set of classes. All
other known tribes introduced these restrictions after totems had been
made hereditary. On passing the restrictive marriage law, they merely
drafted people of one set of hereditary totems into one division, all
the other totem kins into the other division. But the Arunta had not
made totems hereditary, but accidental, so all the children of one
crowd of mothers were placed in division A, all other children in
division B. The mothers in each division would have children of all the
totems, and thus the same totems now appeared in both of the exogamous
divisions. If a man married into his lawful opposite class, the fact
that the woman was of the same totem made no difference.

I have offered quite an opposite explanation. Arunta totems were,
originally, hereditary among the Arunta, as everywhere else, and no
totem occurred in both exogamous divisions. The same totems, later, got
into both divisions as the result of the later and isolated belief in
reincarnation PLUS the sacred haunted stones. That superstition has
left the Kaitish PRACTICE of marriage still almost untouched. A Kaitish
MAY, like an Arunta, marry a woman of his own totem, but he scarcely
ever does so. The old prohibition, extinct in law, persists in custom;
unless we say that the Kaitish are now merely imitating the usual
practice of the rest of the totemic races of the world.

Moreover, even among the Arunta, certain totems greatly preponderate in
each of the two exogamous intermarrying divisions of the tribe. This
must be because the present practice has not yet quite upset the
ancient usage, by which no totem ever occurred in both divisions. There
is even an Arunta myth asserting that this was so, but it is, of
course, of no historical value as evidence. Here it is proper to give
Mr. Frazer's contrary theory in his own words:--

'This [Arunta] mode of determining the totem has all the appearance of
extreme antiquity. For it ignores altogether the intercourse of the
sexes as the cause of offspring, and further, it ignores the tie of
blood on the maternal as well as the paternal side, substituting for it
a purely local bond, since the members of a totem stock are merely
those who gave the first sign of life in the womb at one or other of
certain definite spots. This form of totemism, which may be called
conceptional or local to distinguish it from hereditary totemism, may
with great probability be regarded as the most primitive known to exist
at the present day, since it seems to date from a time when blood
relationship was not yet recognised, and when even the idea of
paternity had not yet presented itself to the savage mind. Moreover, it
is hardly possible that this peculiar form of local totemism, with its
implied ignorance of such a thing as paternity at all, could be derived
from hereditary totemism, whereas it is easy to understand how
hereditary totemism, either in the paternal or in the maternal line,
could be derived from it. Indeed, among the Umbaia and Gnanji tribes we
can see at the present day how the change from local to hereditary
totemism has been effected. These tribes, like the Arunta and Kaitish,
believe that conception is caused by the entrance into a woman of a
spirit who has lived in its disembodied state, along with other spirits
of the same totem, at any one of a number of totem centres scattered
over the country; but, unlike the Arunta and Kaitish, they almost
always assign the father's totem to the child, even though the infant
may have given the first sign of life at a place haunted by spirits of
a different totem. For example, the wife of a snake man may first feel
her womb quickened at a tree haunted by spirits of goshawk people; yet
the child will not be a goshawk but a snake, like its father. The
theory by which the Umbaia and Gnanji reconcile these apparently
inconsistent beliefs is that a spirit of the husband's totem follows
the wife and enters into her wherever an opportunity offers, whereas
spirits of other totems would not think of doing so. In the example
supposed, a snake spirit is thought to have followed up the wife of the
snake man and entered into her at the tree haunted by goshawk spirits,
while the goshawk spirits would refuse to trespass, so to say, on a
snake preserve by quartering themselves in the wife of a snake man.
This theory clearly marks a transition from local to hereditary
totemism in the paternal line. And precisely the same theory could,
MUTATIS MUTANDIS, be employed to effect a change from local to
hereditary totemism in the maternal line; it would only be necessary to
suppose that a pregnant woman is always followed by a spirit of her own
totem, which sooner or later effects a lodgement in her body. For
example, a pregnant woman of the bee totem would always be followed by
a bee spirit, which would enter into her wherever and whenever she felt
her womb quickened, and so the child would be born of her own bee
totem. Thus the local form of totemism, which obtains among the Arunta
and Kaitish tribes, is older than the hereditary form, which is the
ordinary type of totemism in Australia and elsewhere, first, because it
rests on far more archaic conceptions of society and of life; and,
secondly, because both the hereditary kinds of totemism, the paternal
and the maternal, can be derived from it, whereas it can hardly be
derived from either of them.'

This argument appears to take for granted that the conception of primal
ancestral spirits, perpetually reincarnated, is primitive. But, in
fact, we seem to know it, among Australian tribes, only in these which
have advanced to the possession of eight classes, and have made 'the
great step in progress' (if it is a great step), of descent of the
totem in the paternal line. The Urabunna, with female descent of the
totem, have, it is true, the belief in reincarnation. But they
intermarry with the Arunta, borrow their sacred stones, and practise
the same advanced rites and ceremonies. The idea may thus have been
borrowed. On the other hand, the more pristine tribes of the
south-east, with two or four exogamous divisions, and with female
descent of the totem, have no known trace of the doctrine of
reincarnation (except as displayed by the Euahlayi), and have no doubt
that the father is the cause of procreation, save in the case of the
Euahlayi, who believe that the Moon and the Crow 'make' the new
children.

It would thus appear that the central and northern belief in perpetual
reincarnation of primal spirits is not primitive, yet the Arunta method
of acquiring totems does not exist save by grace of this belief, PLUS
the isolated belief in primal sacred stones.

I am obliged to differ from Mr. Frazer when he says that 'it is easy to
see how hereditary totemism, either in the paternal or in the maternal
line, would be derived from' the Arunta belief and practice, whereas
'it is hardly possible that this peculiar form of local totemism
[Arunta], with its implied ignorance of such a thing as paternity at
all, could be derived from hereditary totemism.'

I do not know whether the other northern tribes share the Arunta
nescience of procreation, or not. Whether they do or do not, it was as
easy for them to e plain all difficulties by a reconciling myth--a
spirit of the husband's totem follows his wife--as for a white savant to
frame an hypothesis. The Urabunna, with female descent of the totem,
have quite another myth--to reconcile everything.

Nothing can be more easy. Supposing the Arunta to have begun, as in my
theory, with hereditary totemism, the rise of their isolated belief in
spirit-haunted sacred stones, encroached on and destroyed the
hereditary character of their totemism. The belief in CHURINGA NANJA is
an isolated freak, but it has done its work, while leaving traces of an
earlier state of things, as we have shown, both among the Kaitish and
Arunta.

If I am right in differing from such a master of many legions as the
learned author of THE GOLDEN BOUGH, the irreligion of the Arunta and
northern tribes (if these be really without religion) is the result of
their form of speculation, wholly occupied by the idea of
reincarnation, while the Arunta form of totemism is the consequence of
an isolated fantasy about their peculiar sacred stones. Meanwhile the
Euahlayi, as Mrs. Parker proves, entertain, in a limited way, not
elsewhere recorded in Australia, the belief in the reincarnation of the
souls of uninitiated young people. They also, like the Arunta,
recognise haunted trees and rocks, but the haunting spirits do not
desire reincarnation, and are not ancestral. Spirits of the dead go to
one or other abode of souls, to Baiame, or far from his presence to a
place of pain. So limited is human fancy, that here, as in Beckford's
picture of hell in VATHEK, each spirit eternally presses his hand
against his side. Were this a Christian doctrine, the Euahlayi would be
said to have borrowed it, but few will accuse them of plagiarising from
Beckford. These myths, like all myths, are not consistent. Baiame may
change a soul into a bird.

We may ask whether, with their limited belief in reincarnation, and
with their haunted Minggah trees and rocks, the Euahlayi have set up a
creed which might possibly develop into the northern faith, or whether
they once held the northern faith, and have almost emerged from it.
Without further information about intermediate tribes and their ideas
on these matters, the question cannot be answered. We are also without
data as to whether the nearly extinct southern coastal tribes evolved
the All Father belief, and transmitted it to the Euahlayi, to some
Queensland tribe, with their Mulkari, and even to the Kaitish, or
whether the faith has been independently developed among the tribes
with no matrimonial classes and the others. Conjecture is at present
useless.

In one respect a discovery of Mrs. Parker's is unfavourable to my
theories. In THE SECRET OF THE TOTEM have shown that, when the names of
the phratry divisions of the tribes can be interpreted, they prove to
be names of animals, and I have shown how this may have come to be the
case. But among the Euahlayi the phratry names mean 'light blood' and
'dark blood.' This, PRIMA FACIE, seems to favour the theory of the Rev.
Mr. Mathews, in his EAGLE HAWK AND CROW, that two peoples, lighter and
darker, after an age of war, made CONNUBIUM and marriage treaty, whence
came the phratries. The same author might urge, if he pleased, that
Eagle Hawk (about the colour of the peregrine) was chosen to represent
'light,' and Crow to represent 'dark'; while the phratry animals, White
and Black Cockatoo, were selected, elsewhere, to represent the same
contrast. But we need more information as to the meanings of other
phratry names which have defied translation.

In many other things, as in the account of the YUNBEAI of the Euahlayi,
their mode of removing the tabu on the totem in food, their magic,
their 'multiplex totems,' their methods of hunting, their initiatory
ceremonies, their highly moral lullabies, and the whole of their kindly
life, Mrs. Parker's book appears to deserve a welcome from the few who
care to study the ways of early men, ' the pit whence we were dug.' The
Euahlayi are a sympathetic people, and have found a sympathetic
chronicler.

A. LANG.





CHAPTER I



INTRODUCTORY


The following pages are intended as a contribution to the study of the
manners, customs, beliefs, and legends of the Aborigines of Australia.
The area of my observation is mainly limited to the region occupied by
the Euahlayi tribe of north-western New South Wales, who for twenty
years were my neighbours on the Narran River. I have been acquainted
since childhood with the natives, first in southern South Australia;
next on my father's station on the Darling River, where I was saved by
a native girl, when my sisters were drowned while bathing. I was
intimate with the dispositions of the blacks, and was on friendly terms
with them, before I began a regular attempt to inquire into their
folk-lore and customary laws, at my husband's station on the Narran,
due north of the Barwon River, the great affluent of the Murray River.

My tribe is a neighbour of that mentioned by Mr. Howitt as the
'Wollaroi, ' 'Yualloroi,' or 'Yualaroi.'[Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OF
SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 57, 467, 694, 769.] I spell the tribal name
'Euahlayi'; the accent is on the second syllable--'You-ahl-ayi'; and
the name is derived from the tribal word for the negative: EUAHL, or
YOUAL, 'No,' as in the case of the Kamilaroi (Kamil, 'No'), and many
other tribes.

Mr. Howitt regards these tribes as on the limits of what he calls the
'Four Sub-Class' system. The people, that is to say, have not only the
division into two 'phratries,' or 'exogamous moieties,' intermarrying,
but also the four 'Matrimonial Classes' further regulating marriage.
These classes bear the Kamilaroi names, of unknown meaning, Ipai, Kumbo,
Murri, and Kubbi; but the names of the two main divisions, or phratries,
are not those of the Kamilaroi--DILBI and KUPATHIN.

The Euahlayi language, or dialect, is not identical with that of the
great Kamilaroi tribe to their south-east, but is clearly allied with
it, many names of animals being the same in both tongues. A few names
of animals are shared with the Wir djuri speech, as MULLIAN, Eagle
Hawk; Pelican, GOOLAYYAHLEE (Wir djuri, GULAIGULI). The term for the
being called 'The All Father' by Mr. Howitt is also the term used by
the Wir djuri and Kamilaroi, 'Baiame' or 'Byamee.' The Euahlayi,
however, possess myths, beliefs, and usages not recorded as extant
among the Kamilaroi, but rather forming a link with the ideas of
peoples dwelling much further west, such as the tribes, on Lake Eyre,
and the southernmost Arunta of the centre. Thus, there is a limited and
modified shape of the central and northern belief in reincarnation, and
there is a great development of what are called by Mr. Howitt '
sub-totems,' which have been found most in a region of Northern
Victoria, to the south of the Euahlayi. There is a belief in
spirit--haunted trees, as among the Arunta, and there is a form of the
Arunta myth of the 'Dream Time,' the age of pristine evolution.

The Euahlayi thus present a mixture of ideas and usages which appears
to be somewhat peculiar and deserving of closer study than it has
received. Mr. Howitt himself refers to the tribe very seldom. It will
be asked, 'How far have the Euahlayi been brought under the influence
of missionaries, and of European ideas in general?'

The nearest missionary settlement was founded after we settled among
the Euahlayi, and was distant about one hundred miles, at Brewarrina.
None of my native informants had been at any time, to my knowledge,
under the influence of missionaries. They all wore shirts, and almost
all of them trousers, on occasion; and all, except the old men, my
chief sources, were employed by white settlers. We conversed in a kind
of LINGUA FRANCA. An informant, say Peter, would try to express himself
in English, when he thought that I was not successful in following him
in his own tongue. With Paddy, who had no English but a curse, I used
two native women, one old, one younger, as interpreters, checking each
other alternately. The younger natives themselves had lost the sense of
some of the native words used by their elders, but the middle-aged
interpreters were usually adequate. Occasionally there were disputes on
linguistic points, when Paddy, a man already grey in 1845, would march
off the scene, and need to be reconciled. They were on very good terms
with me. They would exchange gifts with me: I might receive a carved
weapon, and one of them some tobacco. The giving was not all on my
side, by any means.

My anthropological reading was scanty, but I was well acquainted with
and believed in Mr. Herbert Spencer's 'Ghost theory' of the origin of
religion in the worship of ancestral spirits. What I learned from the
natives surprised me, and shook my faith in Mr. Spencer's theory, with
which it seemed incompatible.

In hearing the old blacks tell their legends you notice a great
difference between them as raconteurs--some tell the bare plot or
feature of the legend, others give descriptive touches all through. If
they are strangers to their audience, they get it over as quickly as
possible in a half-contemptuous way, as if saying, 'What do you want to
know such rubbish for?' But if they know you well, and know you really
are interested, then they tell you the stories as they would tell them
to one another, giving them a new life and adding considerably to their
poetical expression.




CHAPTER II



THE ALL FATHER, BYAMEE


As throughout the chapters on the customary laws, mysteries, and
legends of the Euahlayi, there occur frequent mentions of a superhuman
though anthropomorphic being named Byamee (in Kamilaroi and Wir djuri
'Baiame'), it is necessary to give a preliminary account of the beliefs
entertained concerning him. The name Byamee (usually spelled Baiame)
occurs in Euahlayi, Kamilaroi, and Wir djuri; 'the Wir djuri language
is spoken over a greater extent of territory than any other tongue in
New South Wales.'[R. H. Mathews, J. A. I., vol. xxxiv. p. 284.] The word
occurs in the Rev. Mr. Ridley's GURRE KAMILAROI, an illustrated manual of
Biblical instruction for the education of the Kamilaroi: Mr. Ridley
translated our 'God' by 'Baiame.' He supposed that native term, which he
found and did not introduce, to be a derivative from the verb BAIA, or
BIAI, 'to make.' Literally, however, at least in Euahlayi, the word BYAMEE
means 'great one.' In its sense as the name of the All Father it is not
supposed to be used by women or by the uninitiated. If it is necessary to
speak to them of Byamee, he is called Boyjerh, which means Father, just as
in the Theddora tribe the women speak of Darramulun as PAPANG, 'Father.'
[Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 493.] Among the
Euahlayi both women and the uninitiated use byamee, the adjective for
'great,' in ordinary talk, though the more usual adjective answering to
'great' is BOOROOL, which occurs in Kamilaroi as well as in Euahlayi. The
verb baia or biai, to make or shape, whence Mr. Ridley derived Baiame, is
not known to me in Euahlayi. Wir djuri has BAI, a footmark, and Byamee
left footmarks on the rocks, but that is probably a chance coincidence.

I was first told of Byamee, in whispers, by a very old native, Yudtha
Dulleebah (Bald Head), said to have been already grey haired when Sir
Thomas Mitchell discovered the Narran in 1846. My informant said that
he was instructed as to Byamee in his first Boorah, or initiation. If
he was early grey, say at thirty, in 1846, that takes his initiation
back to 1830, when, as a matter of fact, we have contemporary evidence
to the belief in Byamee, who is not of missionary importation, though
after 1856 Christian ideas may, through Mr. Ridley's book, have been
attached to his name by educated Kamilaroi. But he was a worshipful
being, revealed in the mysteries, long before missionaries came, as all
my informants aver.

There has, indeed, been much dispute as to whether the Aborigines of
Australia have any idea, or germ of an idea, of a God; anything more
than vague beliefs about unattached spirits, mainly mischievous, who
might be propitiated or scared away. Mr. Huxley maintained this view,
as did Mr. Herbert Spencer.[ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS, p. 674.] Both of
these authors, who have great influence on popular opinion, omitted to
notice the contradictory statement of Waitz, published in 1872. He
credited the natives, in some regions, with belief in, and dances
performed in honour of, a 'Good Being,' and denied that the belief and
rites were the result of European influence.[Waitz, ANTHROPOLOGIE DER
NATUR--V(tm)LKER, vol. vi. pp. 796-798. Leipzig, 1872.] Mr. Tylor,
admitting to some extent that the belief now exists, attributed it in part
to the influence of missionaries and of white settlers.[Journal,
Anthropological Institute, vol. xxi. p. 292 ET SEQ.] 'Baiame,' he held,
was a word of missionary manufacture, introduced about 1830-1840. This
opinion was controverted by Mr. Lang,[MAGIC AND RELIGION, p. 25 SQ. MYTH,
RITUAL, AND RELIGION, vol. ii. chap. xii., 1899.] and by Mr. N. W. Thomas.
Mr. Thomas[MAN, 1905, No. 28.] has produced the evidence of Henderson,
writing in 1829-1830, for the belief in 'Piame' or Byamee, or
Baiame.[OBSERVATIONS AN THE COLONIES OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND VAN DIEMAN'S
LAND, p. 147.]

In 1904 Mr. Howitt gave a great mass of evidence for the belief in what
he calls an 'All Father': in many dialects styled by various names
meaning 'Our Father,' dwelling in or above the sky, and often receiving
the souls of blacks who have been 'good.' These ideas are not derived,
Mr. Howitt holds, from Europeans, or developed out of ancestor-worship,
which does not exist in the tribes. The belief is concealed from women,
but communicated to lads at their initiation.[Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OF
SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 488-508.] The belief, in favourable
circumstances, might develop, Mr. Howitt thinks, into what he speaks of as
a 'religion,' a 'recognised religion.' Without asking how 'a recognised
religion' is to be defined, I shall merely tell what I have gathered as to
the belief in Byamee among the Euahlayi.

It may seem strange that I should know anything about a belief
carefully kept from women, but I have even been privileged to hear
'Byamee's Song,' which only the fully initiated may sing; an old black,
as will later appear, did chant this old lay, now no longer understood,
to myself and my husband. Moreover, the women of the Euahlayi have some
knowledge of, and some means of, mystic access to Byamee, though they
call him by another name.

Byamee, in the first place, is to the Euahlayi what the 'Alcheringa' or
'Dream time' is to the Arunta. Asked for the reason why of anything,
the Arunta answer, 'It was so in the Alcheringa.' Our tribe have a
subsidiary myth corresponding to that of the Alcheringa. There was an
age, in their opinion, when only birds and beasts were on earth; but a
colossal man and two women came from the remote north-east, changed
birds and beasts into men and women, made other folk of clay or stone,
taught them everything, and left laws for their guidance, then
returned whence they came. This is a kind of 'Alcheringa' myth, but
whether this colossal man was Byamee or not, our tribe give, as the
final answer to any question about the origin of customs, 'Because
Byamee say so.' Byamee declared his will, and that was and is enough
for his children. At the Boorah, or initiatory ceremonies, he is
proclaimed as 'Father of All, whose laws the tribes are now obeying.'
Byamee, at least in one myth (told also by the Wir djuri), is the
original source of all totems, and of the law that people of the same
totem may not intermarry, 'however far apart their hunting-grounds.' I
heard first in a legend, then received confirmation from all old
blacks, that Byamee had a totem name for every part of his body, even
to a different one for each finger and toe. And when he was passing on
to fresh fields, he gave each kinship of the tribe he was leaving one
of his totems. The usual version is, that to such as were metamorphosed
from birds and animals he gave as totem the animal or whatever it was
from which they were evolved. But no one dreams of claiming Byamee as a
relation belonging to one clan; he is one apart and yet the father of
all, even as Birrahgnooloo is mother of all and not related to any one
clan; Cunnumbeillee, his other wife, had only one totem.

Certainly woman is given a high place in their sacred lore. The chief
wife of Byamee, Birrahgnooloo, is claimed as the mother of all, for
she, like him, had a totem for each part of her body; no one totem can
claim her, but all do.

Mother of all, though mother of none in particular, she was not to be
vulgarised by ordinary domestic relations, For those purposes
Cunnumbeillee was at hand, as a bearer of children and a caterer. Yet
it was Birrahgnooloo whom Byamee best loved and made his companion,
giving her power and position which no other held. She too, like him,
is partially crystallised in the sky-camp, where they are together; the
upper parts of their bodies are as on earth; to her, those who want
floods go, and when willing to grant their requests, she bids
Cunnumbeillee start the flood-ball of flood rolling down the mountains.
Cunnumbeillee, as has been said, had but one totem which her children
derived from her.

Byamee is the originator of things less archaic and important than
totemism. There is a large stone fish-trap at Brewarrina, on the Barwan
River. It is said to have been made by Byamee and his gigantic sons,
just as later Greece attributed the walls of Tiryns to the Cyclops, or
as Glasgow Cathedral has been explained in legend as the work of the
Picts. Byamee also established the rule that there should be a common
camping-ground for the various tribes, where, during the fishing
festival, peace should be strictly kept, all meeting to enjoy the fish,
and do their share towards preserving the fisheries.

Byamee still exists. I have been told by an old native, as will be
shown later, that prayers for the souls of the dead used to be
addressed to Byamee at funerals; certainly not a practice derived from
Protestant missionaries.

Byamee is supposed to listen to the cry of an orphan for rain. Such an
one has but to run out when the clouds are overhead, and, looking at
the sky, call aloud

'Gullee boorboor. Gullee boorboor.'

'Water come down. Water come down.'

Or should it be raining too much, the last possible child of a woman
can stop it by burning Midjeer wood.

Bootha told me after one rain that she had sent one of her tutelary
spirits to tell Boyjerh--Byamee is called by women and children
Boyjerh--that the country wanted rain. In answer he had taken up a
handful of crystal pebbles and thrown them from the sky down into the
water in a stone basin on the top of the sacred mountain; as the
pebbles fell in, the water splashed up into the clouds above, whence it
descended as the desired rain.

It is told to me, that at some initiatory rites the oldest medicine
man, or Wirreenun, present addresses a prayer to Byamee, asking him to
give them long life, as they have kept his law.

The tribesmen do not profess to pray, or to have prayed, to Byamee on
any occasions except at funerals, and at the conclusion of the Boorah.

As for Byamee's relation to ethics, it will be stated in the chapter on
the tribal ceremonies, while the stories as to the rewards and
punishments of the future life will be given in their place. Baiame's
troubles with a kind of disobedient deputy, Darramulun, will also be
narrated: the myth is current, too, among the Wir djuri tribe.

Other particulars about Byamee will occur in the course of later
chapters: here I have tried to give a general summary of the native
beliefs. The reader may interpret them in his own fashion, and may
decide as to whether the beliefs do or do not indicate a kind of
'religion,' whether 'a recognised religion' or not. There is
necessarily, of course, an absence of temples and of priests, and I
have found no trace or vestige of sacrifice. What may be said on the
affirmative side as to the religious aspect of the belief, the reader
can supply from the summary of facts. Other potent beings occur in
native myth, as we shall show, but there appears to exist between them
and mankind no relation of affection, reverence, or duty, as in the
case of Byamee.

Here it seems necessary to advert to a remark of Mr. Howitt's which
appears to be erroneous. He says 'that part of Australia which I have
indicated as the habitat of that belief' (namely, in an All Father),'
is also the area where there has been the advance from group marriage
to individual marriage; from descent in the female line to that in the
male line; where the primitive organisation under the class system has
been more or less replaced by an organisation based on locality; in
fact, where these advances have been made to which I have more than
once drawn attention.'[Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA,
p. 500.]

Mr. Howitt forgets that he himself attributes the early system of
descent through women, and also the belief in an All Father (Nurelli),
to the Wiimbaio tribe [IBID. p. 489] to the Wotjobaluk tribe,[NATIVE
TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 120, 490.] to the Kamilaroi, to the
Ta-Ta-thi,[IBID. p. 494] while female descent and the belief in Baiame
mark the Euahlayi and Wir djuri.[JOURNAL, ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE,
XXV., p. 297.]

These tribes cover an enormous area of country, and, though they have
not advanced to male kinship, they all possess the belief in an All
Father. That belief does not appear to be in any way associated with
advance in social organisation, for Messrs. Spencer and Gillen cannot
find a trace of it in more than one of the central and northern tribes,
which have male kinship, and a kind of local self-government. On the
other hand, it does occur among southern tribes, like the Kurnai, which
have advanced almost altogether out of totemism.

In short, we have tribes with female descent, such as the Dieri and
Urabunna, to whom all knowledge of an All Father is denied. We have
many large and important tribes with female descent who certainly
believe in an All Father. We have tribes of the highest social
advancement who are said to show no vestige of the belief, and we have
tribes also socially advanced who hold the belief with great vigour. In
these circumstances, authenticated by Mr. Howitt himself, it is
impossible to accept the theory that belief in an All Father is only
reached in the course of such advance to a higher social organisation
as is made by tribes who reckon descent in the male line.




CHAPTER III



RELATIONSHIPS AND TOTEMS


Some savants question the intellectual ability of the blacks because
they have not elaborate systems of numeration and notation, which in
their life were quite unneeded. Such as were needed were supplied. They
are often incorporate in one word-noun and qualifying numerical
adjective, as for example--

Gundooee      A SOLITARY EMU

Booloowah     TWO EMUS

Oogle oogle   FOUR EMUS

Gayyahnai     FIVE OR SIX EMUS

Gonurrun      FOURTEEN OR FIFTEEN EMUS.

I fancy the brains that could have elaborated their marriage rules were
capable of workaday arithmetic if necessary, and few indeed of us know
our family trees as the blacks know theirs.

Even the smallest black child who can talk seems full of knowledge as
to all his relations, animate and inanimate, the marriage taboos, and
the rest of their complicated system.

The first division among this tribe is a blood distinction (I
phratries'):--

Gwaigulleeah  LIGHT BLOODED

Gwaimudthen   DARK BLOODED.

This distinction is not confined to the human beings of the tribe, who
must be of one or the other, but there are the Gwaigulleeah and
Gwaimudthen divisions in all things. The first and chief division in
our tribe, as regards customary marriage law, is the partition of all
tribes-folk into these 'phratries,' or 'exogamous moieties.' While in
most Australian tribes the meanings of the names of phratries are lost,
where the meanings are known they are usually names of animals--Eagle,
Hawk, and Crow, White Cockatoo and Black Cockatoo, and so forth. Among
the great Kamilaroi tribe, akin in speech to the Euahlayi, the names of
phratries, DILBI and KUPATHIN, are of unknown significance. The
Euahlayi names, we have seen, are Gwaigulleeah, Light blooded, and
Gwaimudthen, Dark blooded.

The origin of this division is said to be the fact that the original
ancestors were, on the one side, a red race coming from the west, the
Gwaigulleeah; on the other, a dark race coming from the east.

A Gwaigulleeah may under no circumstances marry a Gwaigulleeah; he or
she must mate with a Gwaimudthen. This rule has no exception. A child
belongs to the same phratry as its mother.

The next name of connection is local, based on belonging to one country
or hunting-ground; this name a child takes from its mother wherever it
may happen to be born. Any one who is called a Noongahburrah belongs to
the Noongah-Kurrajong country; Ghurreeburrah to the orchid country;
Mirriehburrah, poligonum country; Bibbilah, Bibbil country, and so on.
This division, not of blood relationship, carries no independent
marriage restriction, but keeps up a feeling equivalent to Scotch,
Irish, or English, and is counted by the blacks as 'relationship,' but
not sufficiently so to bar marriage.

The next division is the name in common for all daughters, or all sons
of one family of sisters. The daughters take the name from their
maternal grandmother, the sons from their maternal great-uncle.

Of these divisions, called I Matrimonial Classes, there are four for
each sex, bearing the same names as among the Kamilaroi. The names
are--

Masculine Kumbo     BROTHER AND SISTER
Feminine, Bootha

Masculine Murree    BROTHER AND SISTER
Feminine, Matha

Masculine Hippi     BROTHER AND SISTER
Feminine, Hippitha

Masculine Kubbee    BROTHER AND SISTER
Feminine, Kubbootha


The children of Bootha will be

Masculine Hippi     BROTHER AND SISTER
Feminine, Hippitha


The children of Matha will be

Masculine Kubbee    BROTHER AND SISTER
Feminine, Kubbootha


The children of Hippatha will be

Masculine Kumbo     BROTHER AND SISTER
Feminine, Bootha


The children of Kubbootha will be

Masculine Murree    BROTHER AND SISTER
Feminine, Matha


Thus, you see, they take, if girls, their grandmother's and her
sisters' 'class' names in common; if boys, the 'class' name of their
grandmother's brothers.

Bootha    can only marry Murree,

Matha     can only marry Kumbo,

Hippitha  can only marry Kubbee,

Kubbootha can only marry Hippi.


Both men and women are often addressed by these names when spoken to.

A PROPOS of names, a child is never called at night by the same name as
in the daytime, lest the 'devils' hear it and entice him away.

Names are made for the newly born according to circumstances; a girl
born under a Dheal tree, for example, was called Dheala. Any incident
happening at the time of birth may gain a child a name, such as a
particular lizard passing. Two of my black maids were called after
lizards in that way: Barahgurree and Bogginbinnia.

Nimmaylee is a porcupine with the spines coming; such an one having
been brought to the camp just as a girl was born, she became Nimmaylee.

The mothers, with native politeness, ask you to give their children
English names, but much mote often use in familiar conversation either
the Kumbo Bootha names, or others derived from place of birth, from
some circumstance connected with it, a child's mispronunciation of a
word, some peculiarity noticed in the child, or still more often they
call each other by the name proclaiming the degree of relationship.

For example, a girl calls the daughters of her mother and of her aunts
alike sisters.

Boahdee       SISTER
Wambaneah     FULL BROTHER
Dayadee       HALF BROTHER
Gurrooghee    UNCLE
Wulgundee     UNCLE'S WIFE
Kummean       SISTER'S SISTER
Numbardee     MOTHER
Numbardee     MOTHER'S SISTER
Beealahdee    FATHER
Beealahdee    MOTHER'S SISTERS' HUSBANDS
Gnahgnahdee   GRANDMOTHER ON FATHER'S SIDE
Bargie        GRANDMOTHER ON MOTHER'S SIDE
Dadadee       GRANDFATHER ON MOTHER'S SIAE
Gurroomi      A SON-IN-LAW, OR ONE WHO COULD BE A SON-IN-LAW
Goonooahdee   A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW, OR ONE WHO COULD BE A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
Gooleerh      HUSBAND OR WIFE, OR ONE WHO MIGHT BE SO.


So relationships are always kept in their memories by being daily used
as names. There are other general names, too, such as--

Mullayerh     A TEMPORARY MATE OR COMPANION
Moothie       A FRIEND OF CHILDHOOD IN AFTER LIFE
Doore-oothai  A LOVER
Dillahga      AN ELDERLY MAN OF THE SAME TOTEM
Tuckandee     A YOUNG MAN OF THE SAME TOTEM, RECKONED AS A SORT OF BROTHER.


Another list of names used ordinarily is--

Boothan       LAST POSSIBLE CHILD OF A WOMAN
Mahmee        OLD WOMAN
Beewun        MOTHERLESS GIRL
Gowun         FATHERLESS GIRL
Yumbui        FATHERLESS BOY
Moogul        ONLY CHILD.


Those of the same totem are reckoned as brothers and sisters, so cannot
intermarry. 'Boyjerh' relations, as those on the father's side are
called, are not so important as on the mother's side, but are still
recognised.

Now for the great Dhe, or totem system, by some called Mah, but Dhe, is
the more correct.

Dinewan, or emu, is a totem, and has amongst its multiplex totems' or
'sub-totems'--

Goodoo        OR CODFISH
Gumbarl       SILVER BREAM
Inga          CRAYFISH
Boomool       SHRIMPS
Gowargay      WATER EMU SPIRIT
Moograbah     BIG BLACK-AND-WHITE MAGPIE
Booloorl      LITTLE NIGHT OWL
Byahmul       BLACK SWAN
Eerin         A LITTLE NIGHT OWL
Beerwon       A BIRD LIKE A SWALLOW
Dulloorah     THE MANNA-BRINGING BIRDS
Bunnyal       FLIES
Dheal         SACRED FIRE
Gidya         AN ACACIA
Yaraan        AN EUCALYPTUS
Deenyi        IRONBARK
Guatha        QUANDONG
Goodooroo     RIVER BOX
Mirieh        POLIGONUM
Yarragerh     THE NORTH-EAST WIND
Guie          TREE--OWENIA ACIDULA
Niune         WILD MELON
Binnamayah    BIG SALTBUSH.


Bohrah, the kangaroo, is another totem, and is considered somewhat akin
to Dinewan. For example, in a quarrel between, say, the Bohrah totem
and the Beewee, the Dinewan would take the part of the former rather
than the latter.

Amongst the multiplex totems of Bohrah are--

Goolahwilleel    TOPKNOT PIGEONS
Boogoodoogadah   THE RAIN-BIRD
Gilah            FINK-BREASTED PARROT
Quarrian         YELLOW AND RED BREASTED GREY PARROT
Buln Buln        GREEN PARROT
Gidgerregah      SMALL GREEN PARROT
Cocklerina       A ROSE AND YELLOW CRESTED WHILE COCKATOO
Youayah          FROGS
Guiggahboorool   BIGGEST ANT-BEDS
Dunnia           WATTLE TREE
Mulga            AN ACACIA
Gnoel            SANDALWOOD
Brigalow         AN ACACIA
Yarragerh        NORTH-EAST WIND, SAME AS DINEWAN'S.


All clouds, lightning, thunder, and rain that is not blown up by the
wind of another totem, belong to Bohrah.

Beewee, brown and yellow Iguana, numerically a very powerful totem, has
for multiplex totems--

Gai-gai           CATFISH
Curreequinquin    BUTCHER-BIRD
Gougourgahgah     LAUGHING-JACKASS
Deenbi            DIVERS
Birroo Birroo     SAND BUILDERS
Deegeenboyah      SOLDIER-BIRD
Weedah            BOWER-BIRD
Mooregoo Mooregoo BLACK IBIS
Booloon           WHITE CRANE
Noodulnoodul      WHISTLING DUCKS
Goborrai          STARS
Gulghureer        PINK LIZARD
Goori             PINE
Talingerh         NATIVE FUCHSIA
Guiebet           NATIVE PASSION FRUIT
Boonburr          POISON TREE
Gungooday         STOCKMAN'S WOOD
Guddeeboondoo     BITTER BARK
Boorgoolbean or
Mooloowerh        A SHRUB WITH CREAMY BLOSSOMS
Yarragerh         SPRING WIND
Muddernwurderh    WEST WIND.


Those with whom the Beewee shares the winds he counts as relations. It
is the Beewees of the Gwaimudthen, or dark blood, who own Yarragerh
(spring wind); the light-blooded own Mudderwurderh (west wind).

Another totem is Gouyou, or Bandicoot. The animal has disappeared from
the Narran district, but the totem tribe is still strong, though not so
numerous as either the Beewees or Dinewans.

Multiplex totems of Gouyou--

Wayarnberh              TURTLE
Mungghee                MUSSELS
Piggiebillah            PORCUPINE
Dayahminnah             SMALL CARPET SNAKE
Mungun                  LARGE CARPET SNAKE
Douyouie                ANTS
Moondoo                 WASPS
Murgahmuggui            SPIDER
Bayarh                  GREEN-HEAD ANTS
Mubboo                  BEEFWOOD
Coolabah                EUCALYPTUS, FLOODED BOX
Bingahwingul            NEEDLEBUSH
Mayarnah                STONES
Gheeger Gheeger         COLD WEST WIND
Gibbon                  YAM
Boondoon                KINGFISHER
Durnerh brown           PIGEON
Guineeboo               REDBREASTS
Munggheewurraywurraymul SEAGULLS
Guiggah ordinary        ANT-BEDS.


Next we take Doolungaiyah, or Bilber, commonly known as Bilby, a large
species of rat the size of a small rabbit, like which it burrows;
almost died out now. The totem clan are very few here too, so it is
difficult to learn much as to their multiplex totems, amongst which,
however, are--

Ooboon           BLUE-TONGUED LIZARD
Goomblegubbon    PLAINS TURKEY OR BUSTARD
Boothagullagulla BIRD LIKE SEAGULL
Tekel Barain     LARGE WHITE AMARYLLIS.

Douyou, black snake, totem claims--

Noongah            KURRAJONG--STERCULIA
Carbeen            AN EUCALYPTUS
Booroorerh         BULRUSHES
Gargooloo          YAMS
Yhi                THE SUN (FEMININE)
Gunyahmoo          THE EAST WIND
Kurreah            CROCODILE
Wa-ah              SHELLS
Douyougurrah       EARTH-WORMS
Deereeree          WILLY WAGTAIL
Burrengeen         JEEWEE
Bouyoudoorunnillee GREY CRANES
Ouyan              CURLEW
Bouyougah          CENTIPEDES
Bubburr            BIG SNAKE
Woggoon            SCRUB TURKEY
Beeargah           CRANE
Waggestmul         KIND OF RAT
Wi                 SMALL FISH
Millan             SMALL WATER-YAM--SOURTOP


Moodai, or opossum, another totem, claims--

Bibbil             POPULAR-LEAVED GUM
Bumble             CAPPARIS MITCHELLIANNI
Birah              WHITEWOOD
Beebuyer           YELLOW FLOWERING BROOM
Illay              HOP BUSH
Mirrie             WILD CURRANT BUSH
Mooregoo           SWAMP OAK--BELAH
Mungoongarlee      LARGEST IGUANA
Mouyi              WHITE COCKATOO
Beeleer            BLACK COCKATOO
Wungghee           WHITE NIGHT OWL
Mooregoo           MOPOKE
Narahdarn          BAT
Bahloo             MOON
Euloowirrie        RAINBOW
Bibbee             WOODPECKER
Billai             CRIMSON WING PARROT
Durrahgeegin       GREEN FROG.


Maira, a paddy melon, claims as multiplex totems--

Wahn                   THE CROW
Mullyan                THE EAGLE-HAWK
Gooboothoo             DOVES
Goolayyalilee          PELICAN
Oonaywah               BLACK DIVER
Gunundar               WHILE DIVER
Birriebungar           SMALL DIVER
Mounin                 MOSQUITO
Mouninguggahgui        MOSQUITO BIRD
Bullah Bullah          BUTTERFLIES
Tucki                  A KIND OF BREAM
Beewerh                BONY BREAM
Gulbarlee              SHINGLEBACK LIZARD
Budtha                 ROSEWOOD
Goodoogah              YALLI
Wayarah                WILD GRAPES
Garwah                 RIVERS
Gooroongoodilbaydilbay SOUTH WIND.


It is said a Maira will never be drowned, for the rivers are a
sub-totem of theirs; but I notice they nevertheless learn to swim.

Yubbah, carpet snake, as a kin has almost disappeared, only a few
members remaining to claim

Mungahran             HAWK.


Burrahwahn, a big sandhill rat, now extinct here, claims--

Mien                  DINGO
Dalleerin             A LIZARD
Gaengaen              WILD LIME
Willerhderh, or
Douran Douran         NORTH WIND
Bralgah               NATIVE COMPANION.


Buckandee, native cat kin, claim--

Buggila               LEOPARD WOOD
Bean                  MYALL
Bunbundoolooey        A LITTLE BROWN BIRD
Dunnee Bunbun         A VERY LARGE GREEN PARROT
Dooroongul            HAIRY CATERPILLAR.


Amongst other totems were once the Bralgah, Native Companion, and
Dibbee, a sort of sandpiper, but their kins are quite extinct as far as
our blacks are concerned; the birds themselves are still plentiful. The
Bralgah birds have a Boorah ground at the back of our old
horse-paddock, a smooth, well-beaten circle, where they dance the
grotesque dances peculiar to them, which are really most amusing to
watch, somewhat like a set of kitchen lancers into which some dignified
dames have got by mistake, and a curious mixture is the dance of
dignity and romping.

The totem kins numerically strongest with us were the Dinewans,
Beewees, Bohrahs, and Gouyous. Further back in the country, they tell
me, the crow, the eaglehawk, and the bees were original totems, not
multiplex ones, as with us.

It may be as well for those interested in the marriage law puzzles to
state that Dinewans, Bohrahs, Douyous, and Doolungayers are always

Kumbo             Hippi
Bootha            Hippitha.


That Moodai, Gouyou, Beewee, Maira, Yubbah are always

Murree            Kubbee
Matha             Kubbootha.

Our blacks may and do eat their hereditary totems, if so desirous, with
no ill effects to themselves, either real or imaginary; their totem
names they take from their mothers. They may, in fact, in any way use
their totems, but never abuse them. A Beewee, for example, may kill, or
see another kill, and eat or use a Beewee, or one of its multiplex
totems, and show no sign of sorrow or anger. but should any one speak
evil of the Beewee, or of any of its multiplex totems, there will be a
quarrel.

There will likewise be a quarrel if any one dares to mimic a totem,
either by drawing one, except at Boorahs, or imitating it in any way.

There are members of the tribes, principally wizards, or men intended
to be such, who are given an individual totem called Yunbeai. This they
must never eat or they will die. Any injury to his yunbeai hurts the
man himself In danger he has the power to assume the shape of his
yunbeai, which of course is a great assistance to him, especially in
legendary lore; but, on the other hand, a yunbeai is almost a Heel of
Achilles to a wirreenun (see the chapter on Medicine and Magic).

Women are given a yunbeai too, sometimes. One girl had a yunbeai given
her as a child, and she was to be brought up as a witch, but she caught
rheumatic fever which left her with St. Vitus's dance. The yunbeai
during one of her bad attacks jumped out of her, and she lost her
chance of witchery. One old fellow told me once that when he was going
to a public-house he took a miniature form of his yunbeai, which was
the Kurrea--crocodile--out of himself and put it safety in a bottle of
water, in case by any chance he got drunk, and an enemy, knowing his
yunbeai, coaxed it away. I wanted to see that yunbeai in a bottle, but
never succeeded.

The differences between the hereditary totem or Dhe, inherited from the
mother, and the individual totem or yunbeai, acquired by chance, are
these: Food restrictions do not affect the totem, but marriage
restrictions do; the yunbeai has no marriage restrictions; a man having
an opossum for yunbeai may marry a woman having the same either as her
yunbeai or hereditary totem, other things being in order, but under no
circumstances must a yunbeai be eaten by its possessor.

The yunbeai is a sort of alter ego; a man's spirit is in his yunbeai,
and his yunbeai's spirit in him.

A Minggah, or spirit-haunted tree of an individual, usually chosen from
amongst a man's multiplex totems, is another source of danger to him,
as also a help.

As Mr. Canton says: 'What singular threads of superstition bind the
ends of the earth together! In an old German story a pair of lovers
about to part chose each a tree, and by the tree of the absent one was
the one left to know of his wellbeing or the reverse. In time his tree
died, and she, hearing no news of him, pined away, her tree withering
with her, and both dying at the same time.

Well, that is just what a wirreenun would believe about his Minggah.
These Minggah and Goomarh spirit trees and stones always make me think,
perhaps irrelevantly, of one of the restored sayings of the Lord, which
ends 'Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find Me; cleave the wood,
and I am there.'

Blacks were early scientists in some of their ideas, being before
Darwin with the evolution theory, only theirs was a kind of evolution
aided by Byamee. I dare say, though, the missing link is somewhere in
the legends. I rather think the Central Australians have the key to it.
One old man here was quite an Ibsen with his ghastly version of
heredity.

He said, when I asked him what harm it would do for, say, a Beewee
totem man to come from the Gulf country, where his tribe had never had
any communication with ours, and marry a girl here,--that all Beewees
were originally changed from the Beewee form into human shape. The
Beewee of the Gulf, originally, like the Beewee here, had the same
animal shape, and should two of this same blood mate the offspring
would throw back, as they say of horses, to the original strain, and
partake of iguana (Beewee) attributes either in nature or form.

From the statements just given, it will be seen that the Euahlayi are
in the Kamilaroi stage of social organisation. They reckon descent in
the female line: they have 'phratries' and four matrimonial classes,
with totems within the phratries. In their system of 'multiplex-totems'
or 'sub-totems' they resemble the Wotjobaluk tribe.[Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES
OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 121, 125, 453, 455.] The essence of the
'sub-totem' system is the division of all things into the categories
provided by the social system of the human society. The arrangement is a
very early attempt at a scientific system of classification.

Perhaps the most peculiar feature in the organisation of the Euahlayi
is the existence of Matrimonial Classes, which are named as in the
Kamilaroi tongue, while the phratry names are not those of the Kamilaroi,
and alone among phratry names in Australia which can be translated, are
not names of animals. The phratries have thus no presiding animals, and in
the phratries there are no totem kins of the phratriac names. The cause of
these peculiarities is matter of conjecture.

A peculiarity in the totemic system of the Euahlayi--the right of each
individual to kill and eat his own totem--has been mentioned, and may
be associated here with other taboos on food.

The wunnarl, or food taboo, was taken off a different kind of food for
boys at each Boorah, until at last they could eat what they pleased
except their yunbeai, or individual familiar: their Dhe, or family
totem, was never wunnarl or taboo to them.

A child may not perhaps know that it has had a yunbeai given to it, and
may eat of it in ignorance, when immediately they say that child
sickens.

Should a boy or a girl eat plains turkey or bustard eggs while they
were yet wunnarl, or taboo, he or she would lose his or her sight.
Should they eat the eggs or flesh of kangaroo or piggiebillah, their
skins would break out in sores and their limbs wither.

Even honey is wunnarl at times to all but the very old or very young.
Fish is wunnarl for about four years after his Boorah to a boy, and
about four months after she is wirreebeeun, or young woman, to a girl.

When the wunnarl was taken off a particular kind of meat, a wizard
poured some of the melted fat and inside blood of that animal or bird,
as the case might be, over the boy, and rubbed it into him. The boy,
shaking and shivering, made a spluttering noise with his lips; after
that he could eat of the hitherto forbidden food.

This did not necessarily refer to his totem, but any food wunnarl to
him, though it is possible that there may have been a time in tribal
history, now forgotten, when totems were wunnarl, and these ceremonies
may be all that is left to point to that time.

When a boy, after his first Boorah, killed his first emu, whether it
was his Dhe, or totem, or not, his father made him lie on the bird
before it was cooked. Afterwards a wirreenun (wizard) and the father
rubbed the fat on the boy's joints, and put apiece of the flesh in his
mouth. 'The boy chewed it, making a noise as he did so of fright and
disgust; finally he dropped the meat from his mouth, making a blowing
noise through his lips of 'Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!' After that he could eat the
flesh.

A girl, too, had to be rubbed with the fat and blood of anything from
which the wunnarl was to be removed for her. No ceremony of this sort
would be gone through with the flesh, fat, or blood of any one's
yunbeai, or individual familiar animal, for under no circumstances
would any one kill or eat their yunbeai.

Concerning the yunbeai, or animal familiar of the individual, conferred
by the medicine men, more is to be said in the ensuing chapters. The
yunbeai answers to the Manitu obtained by Red Indians during the fast
at puberty; to the 'Bush Soul' of West Africa; to the Nagual of South
American tribes; and to the Nyarong of Borneo. The yunbeai has hitherto
been scarcely remarked on among Australian tribes. Mr. Thomas declares
it to be 'almost non-existent' in Australia, mentioning as exceptions
its presence among the Euahlayi; the Wotjobaluk in Victoria; the
Yaraikkanna of Cape York; and 'probably' some of the northern tribes on
the other side of the Gulf of Carpentaria.[MAN (1904), No. 53, p. 85.]

Perhaps attention has not been directed to the animal familiar in
Australia, or perhaps it is really an infrequent thing among the
tribes.




CHAPTER IV



THE MEDICINE MEN


I used to wonder how the wirreenuns or doctor-wizards of the tribe
attained their degrees.

I found out that the old wizards fix upon a young boy who is to follow
their profession. They take him to a tribal burial-ground at night.
There they tie him down and leave him, after having lit some fires of
fat at short distances round him.

During the night that boy, if he be shaky in his nerves, has rather a
bad time.

One doctor of our tribe gave me a recital of his own early experience.

He said, after the old fellows had gone, a spirit came to him, and
without undoing his fastenings by which he was bound, turned him over,
then went away. Scarcely had the spirit departed when a big star fell
straight from the sky alongside the boy; he gazed fixedly at it, and
saw emerge from it, first the two hind legs, then the whole of a Beewee
or iguana. The boy's totem was a Beewee, so he knew it would not hurt
him. It ran close up to him, climbed on him, ran down his whole length,
then went away.

Next came a snake straight towards his nose, hissing all the time. He
was frightened now, for the snake is the hereditary enemy of the
iguana. The boy struggled to free himself, but ineffectually. He tried
to call out but found himself dumb. He tried to shut his eyes, or turn
them from the snake, but was powerless to do so. The snake crawled on
to him and licked him. Then it went away, leaving the boy as one
paralysed. Next came a huge figure to him, having in its hand a gunnai
or yam stick. The figure drove this into the boy's head, pulled it out
through his back, and in the hole thus made placed a 'Gubberah,' or
sacred stone, with the help of which much of the boy's magic in the
future was to be worked.

This stone was about the size and something the shape of a small lemon,
looking like a smoothed lump of semi-transparent crystal. It is in such
stones that the wi-wirreenuns, or cleverest wizards, see visions of the
past, of what is happening in the present at a distance, and of the
future; also by directing rays from them towards their victims they are
said to cause instantaneous death.

Next, to the doctor-boy on trial, came the spirits of the dead who
corroboreed round him, chanting songs full of sacred lore as regards
the art of healing, and instructions how, when he needed it, he could
call upon their aid.

Then they silently and mysteriously disappeared. The next day one of
the old wizards came to release the boy; he kept him away from the camp
all day and at night took him to a weedah, or bower-bird's, playground.
There he tied him down again, and there the boy was visited again by
the spirits of the dead, and more lore was imparted to him.

The reason given for taking him to a weedah's playground is, that
before the weedah was changed into a bird, he was a great wirreenun;
that is why, as a bird, he makes such a collection of pebbles and bones
at his playground.

The bower-bird's playgrounds are numerous in the bush. They are made of
grass built into a tent-shaped arch open at each end, through which the
weedahs run in and out, and scattered in heaps all around are white
bones and black stones, bits of glass, and sometimes we have found
coins, rings, and brooches.

The weedahs do not lay their eggs at their playgrounds their nests are
hard to find. A little boy always known as 'Weedah,' died lately, so
probably a new name will have to be found for the bird, or to mention
it will be taboo, at all events before the old people, who never allow
the names of the dead to be mentioned.

For several nights the medical student was tied down in case he should
be frightened and run away, after that he was left without bonds. He
was kept away from the camp for about two months. But he was not
allowed to become a practitioner until he was some years older: first
he dealt in conjuring, later on he was permitted to show his knowledge
of pharmacy.

His conjuring cures are divers.

A burn he cures by sucking lumps of charcoal from it. Obstinate pains
in the chest, the wizard says, must be caused by some enemy having put
a dead person's hair', or bone in it. Looking wisdom personified in
truly professional manner, he sucks at the affected spot, and soon
produces from his mouth hair, bones, or whatever he said was there.

If this faith-healing does not succeed, a stronger wizard than he must
have bewitched the patient; he will consult the spirits. To that end he
goes to his Minggah, a tree or stone--more often a tree, only the very
greatest wirreenuns have stones, which are called Goomah--where his own
and any spirits friendly towards him may dwell.

He finds out there who the enemy is, and whence he obtained his poison.
If a wirreenun is too far away to consult his friendly spirits in
person, he can send his Mullee Mullee, or dream spirit, to interview
them.

He may learn that an enemy has captured the sick person's Doowee, or
dream spirit--only wirreenuns' dream spirits are Mullee Mullee, the
others are Doowee--then he makes it his business to get that Doowee
back.

These dream spirits are rather troublesome possessions while their
human habitations sleep they can leave them and wander at will. The
things seen in dreams are supposed to be what the Doowees see while
away from the sleeping bodies. This wandering of the Doowees is a great
chance for their enemies: capture the Doowee and the body sickens;
knock the Doowee about before it returns and the body wakes up tired
and languid. Should the Doowee not return at all, the person from whom
it wandered dies. When you wake up unaccountably tired in the morning,
be sure your Doowee has been 'on the spree,' having a free fight or
something of that sort. And though your Doowee may give you at times
lovely visions of passing paradises, on the whole you would be better
without him.

There is on the Queensland border country a dillee bag full of
unclaimed Doowees. The wirreenun who has charge of this is one of the
most feared of wirreenuns; he is a great magician, who, with his
wonder-working glassy stones, can conjure up visions of the old fleshly
habitations of the captured Doowees.

He has Gubberahs, or clever stones, in which are the active spirits of
evil-working devils, as well as others to work good. Should a Doowee
once get into this wirreenun's bag, which has the power of
self-movement, there is not a great chance of getting it back, though
it is sometimes said to be done by a rival combination of magic. The
worst of it is that ordinary people have no power over their Doowees;
all they can do is to guard against their escaping by trying to keep
their mouths shut while asleep.

The wirreenuns are masters of their Mullee Mullees, sending them where
they please, to do what they are ordered, always provided they do not
meet a greater than themselves.

All sorts of complications arise through the substitution of mad or
evil spirits for the rightful Doowee. Be sure if you think any one has
suddenly changed his character unaccountably, there has been some
hankey-pankey with that person's Doowee. One of the greatest warnings
of coming evil is to see your totem in a dream; such a sign is a herald
of misfortune to you or one of your immediate kin. Should a wirreenun,
perhaps for enmity, perhaps for the sake of ransom, decide to capture a
Doowee, he will send his Mullee Mullee out to do it, bidding the Mullee
Mullee secrete the Doowee in his--the wirreenun's--Minggah, tree or
rock.

When he is consulted as to the return of the missing Doowee, he will
order the one who has lost it to Sleep, then the Doowee, should the
terms made suit the wirreenun, re-enters the body. Should it not do so,
the Doowee-less one is doomed to die.

In a wirreenun's Minggah, too, are often secreted shadow spirits stolen
from their owners, who are by their loss dying a lingering death, for
no man can live without Mulloowil, his shadow. Every one has a shadow
spirit which he is very careful not to parade before his enemies, as
any injury to it affects himself. A wirreenun can gradually shrink the
shadow's size, the owner sickens and dies. 'May your shadow never be
less!'

The shadow of a wirreenun is, like his head, always mahgarl, or taboo;
any one touching either will be made to suffer for such sacrilege.

A man's Minggah is generally a tree from amongst his multiplex totems,'
as having greater reason to help him, being of the same family.

In his Minggah a wirreenun will probably keep some Wundah, or white
devil spirits, with which to work evil. There, too, he often keeps his
yunbeai, or animal spirit--that is, his individual totem, not
hereditary one. All wirreenuns have a yunbeai, and sometimes a special
favourite of the wirreenuns is given a yunbeai too--or in the event of
any one being very ill, he is given a yunbeai, and the strength of that
animal goes into the patient, making him strong again, or a dying
wirreenun leaves his yunbeai to some one else. Though this spirit gives
extra strength it likewise gives an extra danger, for any injury to the
animal hurts the man too; thus even wirreenuns are exposed to danger.

No one, as we have said, must eat the flesh of his yunbeai animal; he
may of his family totem, inherited from his mother, but of his yunbeai
or individual familiar, never.

A wirreenun can assume the shape of his yunbeai; so if his yunbeai
were, for example, a bird, and the wirreenun were in danger of being
wounded or killed, he would change himself into that bird and fly away.

A great wirreenun can substitute one yunbeai for another, as was done
when the opossum disappeared from our district, and the wirreenun,
whose yunbeai it was, sickened and lay ill for months. Two very
powerful wirreenuns gave him a new yunbeai, piggiebillah, the
porcupine. His recovery began at once. The porcupine had been one of
his favourite foods; from the time its spirit was put into him as his
yunbeai, he never touched it.

A wirreenun has the power to conjure up a vision of his particular
yunbeai, which he can make visible to those whom he chooses shall see
it.

The blacks always told me that a very old man on the Narran, dead some
years ago, would show me his yunbeai if I wished; it was Oolah, the
prickly lizard.

One day I went to the camp, saw the old man in his usual airy costume,
only assumed as I came in sight, a tailless shirt. One of the gins said
something to him; he growled an answer; she seemed persuading him to do
something. Presently he moved away to a quite clear spot on the other
side of the fire; he muttered something in a sing-song voice, and
suddenly I saw him beating his head as if in accompaniment to his song,
and then--where it came from I can't say--there beside him was a
lizard. That fragment of a shirt was too transparent to have hidden
that lizard; he could not have had it up his sleeve, because his
sleeves were in shreds. It may have been a pet lizard that he charmed
in from the bush by his song, but I did not see it arrive.

They told me this old man had two yunbeai, the other was a snake. He
often had them in evidence at his camp, and when he died they were seen
beside him; there they remained until he was put into his coffin, then
they disappeared and were never seen again. This man was the greatest
of our local wizards, and I think really the last of the very clever
ones. They say he was an old grey-headed man when Sir Thomas Mitchell
first explored the Narran district in 1845. We always considered him a
centenarian.

It was through him that I heard some of the best of the old legends,
with an interpreter to make good our respective deficiencies in each
other's language.

In the lives of blacks, or rather in their deaths, the Gooweera, or
poison sticks or bones, play a great part.

A Gooweera is a stick about six inches long and half an inch through,
pointed at both ends. This is used for sickening' or killing men.

A Guddeegooree is a similar stick, but much smaller, about three inches
in length, and is used against women.

A man wishing to injure another takes one of these sticks, and warms it
at a small fire he has made; he sticks the gooweera in the ground a few
inches from the fire. While it is warming, he chants an incantation,
telling who he wants to kill, why he wants to kill him, how long he
wants the process to last, whether it is to be sudden death or a
lingering sickness.

The chant over, and the gooweera warmed, he takes it from the fire.
Should he wish to kill his enemy quickly, he binds opossum hair cord
round the stick, only leaving one point exposed; should he only want to
make his enemy ill, he only partially binds the stick. Then he ties a
ligature tightly round his right arm, between the wrist and elbow, and
taking the gooweera, or guddeegooree, according to the sex of his
enemy, he points it at the person he wishes to injure, taking care he
is not seen doing it.

Suddenly he feels the stick becoming heavier, he knows then it is
drawing the blood from his enemy. The poison is prevented from entering
himself by the ligature he has put round his arm. When the gooweera is
heavy enough he ceases pointing it.

If he wants to kill the person outright, he goes away, makes a small
hole in the earth, makes a fire beside it. In this hole he puts a few
Dheal leaves--Dheal is the tree sacred to the dead; on top of the
leaves he puts the gooweera, then more leaves this done, he goes away.
The next day he comes back with his hand he hits the earth beside the
buried stick, out jumps the gooweera, his enemy is dead. He takes the
stick, which may be used many times, and goes on his way satisfied.
Should he only wish to inflict a lingering illness on his enemy, he
refrains from burying the gooweera, and in this case it is possible to
save the afflicted person.

For instance, should any one suspect the man with the gooweera of
having caused the illness, knowing of some grudge he had against the
sick person, the one who suspects will probably intercede for mercy.
The man may deny that he knows anything about it. He may, on the other
hand, confess that he is the agent. If the intercessions prevail, he
produces the gooweera, rubs it all over with iguana fat, and gives the
intercessor what fat is left to rub over the sick person, who, on that
being done, gradually regains his normal condition after having
probably been reduced to a living skeleton from an indescribable
wasting sickness, which I suspect we spell funk.

The best way to make a gooweera effective is to tie on the end of it
some hair from the victim's head--a lock of hair being, in this country
of upside-downs, a hate token instead of one of love.

When the lock of hair method is chosen as a means of happy dispatch,
the process is carried out by a professional.

The hair is taken to the Boogahroo--a bag of hair and gooweeras--which
is kept by one or two powerful wirreenuns in a certain Minggah. The
wirreenun on receiving the hair asks to whom it belongs. Should it
belong to one of a tribe he is favourably disposed towards, he takes
the gooweera or hair, puts it in the bag, but never sings the I death
song' over it, nor does he warm it.

Should he, however, be indifferent, or ill-disposed towards the
individual or his tribe, he completes the process by going through the
form already given, or rather when there are two wirreenuns at the
Boogahroo, the receiver of the hair gives it to the other one, who
sings the death-song, warms the gooweera, and burns the hair. The
person from whose head the hair on the gooweera came, then by
sympathetic magic, at whatever distance he is, dies a sudden or
lingering death according to the incantation sung over the
poison-stick. Gooweeras need not necessarily be of wood; bone is
sometimes used, and in these latter days even iron.

Sometimes at a large meeting of the blacks the Boogahroo wirreenuns
bring the bag and produce from it various locks of hair, which the
owners or their relations recognise, claim, and recover. They find out,
from the wirreenun, who put them there; on gaining which knowledge a
tribal feud is declared--a regular vendetta, which lasts from generation
to generation.

If it be known that a man has stolen a lock of hair, he will be watched
and prevented from reaching the Boogahroo tree, if possible.

These gooweeras used to be a terrible 'nuisance to us on the station. A
really good working black boy would say he must leave, he was going to
die. On inquiry we would extract the information that some one was
pointing a gooweera at him.

Then sometimes the whole camp was upset; a strange black fellow had
arrived, and was said to have brought gooweeras. This reaching the
boss's ears, confiscation would result in order to restore peace of
mind in the camp. Before I left the station a gin brought me a gooweera
and told me to keep it; she had stolen it from her husband, who had
threatened to point it at her for talking to another man.

Some of them, though they still had faith in the power of such charms,
had faith also in me. I used to drive devils out with patent medicines;
my tobacco and patent medicine accounts while collecting folk-lore were
enormous.

A wirreenun, or, in fact, any one having a yunbeai, has the power to
cure any one suffering an injury from whatever that yunbeai is; as, for
example, a man whose yunbeai is a black snake can cure a man who is
bitten by a black snake, the method being to chant an incantation which
makes the yunbeai enter the stricken body and drive out the poison.
These various incantations are a large part of the wirreenun's
education; not least valuable amongst them is the chant sung over the
tracks of snakes, which renders the bites of those snakes innocuous.




CHAPTER V



MORE ABOUT THE MEDICINE MEN AND LEECHCRAFT


The wirreenuns sometimes hold meetings which they allow
non-professionals to attend. At these the spirits of the dead speak
through the medium of those they liked best on earth, and whose bodies
their spirits now animate. These spirits are known as Yowee, the
equivalent of our soul, which never leave the body of the living,
growing as it grows, and when it dies take judgment for it, and can at
will assume its perishable shape unless reincarnated in another form.
So you see each person has at least three spirits, and some four, as
follows: his Yowee, soul equivalent; his Doowee, a dream spirit; his
Mulloowil, a shadow spirit; and may be his Yunbeai, or animal spirit.

Sometimes one person is so good a medium as to have the spirits of
almost any one amongst the dead people speak through him or her, in the
whistling spirit voice.

I think it is very clever of these mediums to have decided that spirits
all have one sort of voice.

At these meetings there would be great rivalry among the wirreenuns.
The one who could produce the most magical stones would be supposed to
be the most powerful. The strength of the stones in them, whether
swallowed or rubbed in through their heads, adds its strength to
theirs, for these stones are living spirits, as it were, breathing and
growing in their fleshly cases, the owner having the power to produce
them at any time. The manifestation of such power is sometimes, at one
of these trials of magic, a small shower of pebbles as seeming to fall
from the heads and mouths of the rivals, and should by chance any one
steal any of these as they fall, the power of the original possessor
would be lessened. The dying bequeath these stones, their most precious
possessions, to the living wirreenun most nearly related to them.

The wirreenun's health and power not only depend upon his crystals and
yunbeai, but also on his Minggah; should an accident happen to that,
unless he has another, he will die--in any case, he will sicken. Many of
the legends deal with the magic of these spirit-animated trees.

They are places of refuge in time of danger; no one save the wirreenun,
whose spirit-tree it was, would dare to touch a refugee at a Minggah;
and should the sanctuary be a Goomarh, or spirit-stone, not even a
wirreenun would dare to interfere, so that it is a perfectly safe
sanctuary from humanly dealt evil. But a refugee at a Minggah or
Goomarh runs a great risk of incurring the wrath of the spirits, for
Minggah are taboo to all but their own wirreenun.

There was a Minggah, a great gaunt Coolabah, near our river garden.
Some gilahs build in it every year, but nothing would induce the most
avaricious of black bird-collectors to get the young ones from there.

A wirreenun's boondoorr, or dillee bag, holds a queer collection:
several sizes of gooweeras, of both bone and wood, poison-stones,
bones, gubberahs (sacred stones), perhaps a dillee--the biggest, most
magical stone used for crystal-gazing, the spirit out of which is said
to go to the person of whom you want to hear, wherever he is, to see
what he is doing, and then show you the person in the crystal. A
dinahgurrerhlowah, or moolee, death-dealing stone, which is said to
knock a person insensible, or strike him dead as lightning would by an
instantaneous flash.

To these are added in this miscellaneous collection medicinal herbs,
nose-bones to put through the cartilage of his nose when going to a
strange camp, so that he will not smell strangers easily. The blacks
say the smell of white people makes them sick; we in our arrogance had
thought it the other way on.

Swansdown, shells, and woven strands of opossum's hair are valuable,
and guarded as such in the boondoorr, which is sometimes kept for
safety in the wirreenun's Minggah.

Having dealt with the supernatural part of a wirreenun's training,
which argues cunning in him and credulity in others, I must get to his
more natural remedies.

Snakebite they cure by sucking the wound and cauterising it with a
firestick. They say they suck out the young snakes which have been
injected into the bitten person.

For headaches or pains which do not yield to the vegetable medicine,
the wirreenuns tie a piece of opossum's hair string round the sore
place, take one end in their mouths, and pull it round and round until
it draws blood along the cord. For rheumatic pains in the head or in
the small of the back and loins they often bind the places affected
with coils of opossum hair cord, as people do sometimes with red
knitting-silk.

The blacks have many herbal medicines, infusions of various barks,
which they drink or wash themselves with, as the case may be.

Various leaves they grind on their dayoorl-stones, rubbing themselves
with the pulp. Steam baths they make of pennyroyal, eucalyptus, pine,
and others.

The bleeding of wounds they stanch with the down of birds.

For irritations of the skin they heat dwarf saltbush twigs and put the
hot ends on the irritable parts.

After setting a broken limb they put grass and bark round it, then bind
it up.

For swollen eyes they warm the leaves of certain trees and hold them to
the affected parts, or make an infusion of Budtha leaves and bathe the
eyes in it.

For rheumatic pains a fire is made, Budtha twigs laid on it, a little
water thrown on them; the ashes raked out, a little more water thrown
on, then the patient lies on top, his opossum rug spread over him, and
thus his body is steamed. To induce perspiration, earth or sand is also
often heated and placed in a hollowed-out space; on it the patient
lies, and is covered with more heated earth.

Pennyroyal infused they consider a great blood purifier they also use a
heap as a pillow if suffering from insomnia. It is hard to believe a
black ever does suffer from insomnia, yet the cure argues the fact.

Beefwood gum is supposed to strengthen children. It is also used for
reducing swollen joints. A hole is made in the ground, some coals put
in, on them some beefwood leaves, on top of them the gum; over the hole
is put enough bark to cover it with a piece cut out of it the size of
the swollen joint to be steamed, which joint is held over this hole.

Various fats are also used as cures. Iguana fat for pains in the head
and stiffness anywhere. Porcupine and opossum fats for preserving their
hair, fish fat to gloss their skins, emu fat in cold weather to save
their skins from chapping.

But what is supposed to strengthen them more than anything, both
mentally and physically, is a small piece of the flesh of a dead
person, or before a body is put in a bark coffin a few incisions were
made in it; when it was coffined it was stood on end, and what drained
from the incisions was caught in small wirrees and drunk by the
mourners.

I fancy such cannibalism as has been in these tribes was not with a
view to satisfaction of appetite but to the incorporation of additional
strength. Either men or women are allowed to assist in this
particularly nauseating funeral rite, but not the young people.

Nor must their shadows fall across any one who has partaken of this
rite; should they do so some evil will befall them.

If the mother of a young child has not enough milk for its sustenance,
she is steamed over 'old man' saltbush, and hot twigs of it laid on her
breasts. To expedite the expulsion of the afterbirth, an old woman
presses the patient round the waist, gives her frequent drinks of cold
water, and sprinkles water over her. As soon as the afterbirth is
removed a steam is prepared. Two logs are laid horizontally, some
stones put in between them, then some fire, on top leaves of
eucalyptus, and water is then sprinkled over them. The patient stands
astride these logs, an opossum rug all over her, until she is well
steamed. After this she is able to walk about as if nothing unusual had
happened. Every night for about a month she has to lie on a steam bed
made of damped eucalyptus leaves. She is not allowed to return to the
general camp for about three months after the birth of her child.

Though perfectly well, she is considered unclean, and not allowed to
touch anything belonging to any one. Her food is brought to her by some
old woman. Were she to touch the food or food utensils of another they
would be considered unclean and unfit for use. Her camp is gailie--that
is, only for her; and she is goorerwon as soon as her child is born--a
woman unclean and apart. Immediately a' baby is born it is washed in
cold water.

Ghastly traditions the blacks have of the time when Dunnerh-Dunnerh,
the smallpox, decimated their ancestors. Enemies sent it in the winds,
which hung it on the trees, over the camps, whence it dropped on to its
victims. So terror-stricken were the tribes that, with few exceptions,
they did not stay to bury their dead; and because they did not do so,
flying even from the dying, a curse was laid on them that some day the
plague would return, brought back by the Wundah or white devils; and
the blacks shudder still, though it was generations before them, at the
thought that such a horror may come again.

Poison-stones are ground up finely and placed in the food of the person
desired to be got rid of. These poison-stones are of two kinds, a
yellowish-looking stone and a black one; they cause a lingering death.
The small bones of the wrist of a dead person are also pounded up and
put into food, in honey or water, as a poison.

One cure struck me as quaint. The patient may be lying down, when up
will come one of the tribe, most likely a wirreenun with a big piece of
bark. He strikes the ground with this all round the patient, making a
great row; this is to frighten the sickness away.

What seems to me a somewhat peculiar ceremony is the reception a coming
baby holds before its birth.

The baby is presumably about to be born. Its grandmother is there
naturally, but the black baby declines to appear at the request of its
grandmother, and, moreover, declines to come if even the voice of its
grandmother is heard; so grannie has to be a silent spectator while
some other woman tempts the baby into the world by descanting on the
glories of it. First, perhaps, she will say:

'Come now, here's your auntie waiting to see you.'

'Here's your sister.'

'Here's your father's sister,' and so on through a whole list. Then she
will say, as the relatives and friends do not seem a draw:

'Make haste, the bumble fruit is ripe. The guiebet flowers are
blooming. The grass is waving high. The birds are all talking. And it
is a beautiful place, hurry up and see for yourself.'

But it generally happens that the baby is too cute to be tempted, and
an old woman has to produce what she calls a wi-mouyan--a clever
stick--which she waves over the expectant mother, crooning a charm which
brings forth the baby.

If any one nurses a patient and the patient dies, the nurse wears an
armlet of opossum's hair called goomil, and a sort of fur boa called
gurroo.

If blacks go visiting, when they leave they make a smoke fire and smoke
themselves, so that they may not carry home any disease.

As a rule blacks do not have small feet, but their hands are almost
invariably small and well shaped, having tapering fingers.




CHAPTER VI



OUR WITCH WOMAN


Our witch woman was rather a remarkable old person. When she was, I
suppose, considerably over sixty, her favourite granddaughter died.

Old Bootha was in a terrible state of grief, and chopped herself in a
most merciless manner at the burial, especially about the head. She
would speak to no one, used to spend her time about the grave, round
which she fixed upright posts which she painted white, red, and black.
All round the grave she used to sweep continually.

More and more she isolated herself, and at last discarded all her
clothes and roamed the bush A LA Eve before the Fall, as she had
probably done as a young girl.

She dug herself an underground camp, roofed it over, and painted
enormous posts which she erected in front of her 'Muddy wine,' as she
called her camp. She never came near the house, though we had been
great friends before.

She used to prowl round the outhouses and pick up all sorts of things,
rubbish for the most part, but often good utensils too; all used to be
secreted in the underground camp. She never talked to any one, but used
to mutter continually to herself and her dogs in an unknown tongue
which only her dogs seemed to understand.

We thought she was quite mad.

One day, while we were playing tennis, she suddenly, muttering her
strange language and dancing new corroboree steps, clad only in her
black skin, came up. Matah told her to go away, but she only
corroboreed round him and said she wanted to see me. I have the most
morbid horror of lunacy in any form. I was once induced to go over a
lunatic asylum--the horror of it haunts me still. However, I thought it
would never do to show the coward I was, so though I felt as if I had
been scooped out and filled up with ice, I went to her. She danced
round me for a little time, then sidled up to me and said:

'Wahl you frightened, wahl me hurt you. I only womba--mad--all
yowee--spirits--in me tell me gubbah--good--I lib 'long a youee; bimeby
I come back big feller wirreenun; wahl you frightened? I not hurt you.'

And after crooning an accompaniment to her steps off she went, a
strange enough figure, dancing and crooning as she went towards her
camp; and not until the spirits gave up possession of her did she come
near the house again.

One day she gave us a start. We were schooling a new team of four
horses. The off-side leader had only been in once before, and was a
brumby (horse run in from a wild mob). We had to pass Bootha's camp. I
looked about as we neared it but saw nothing of her. Suddenly from the
ground, as it seemed, out dashed the weird old figure, arms full of
things, jabbering away at a great rate. Whiz came a tin plate past the
leaders' heads; the offside horse reared and plunged and took some
holding. Whiz came an old bill; then, one after another, a regular
fusilade of various utensils.

It did not take us long to get past, but for as long as we could see
the attack was kept up. Coming back we saw nothing of Bootha, and all
the utensils had been picked up.

I used to tell the other blacks to see that Bootha had plenty of food.
They said she was all right, the spirits were looking after her.
Lunatics, from their point of view, are only persons spirit-possessed.

Gradually old Bootha, clothed as usual, came back about the place.

Strange stories came through the house blacks to me of old Bootha. She
was very ill for a long time, then suddenly she recovered; not only
recovered but seemed rejuvenated. We heard of wonderful cures she made;
how she always consulted the spirits about any illness; how there were
said to be spirits in some of her dogs; how she was now a rainmaker
and, in fact, a fully fledged witch.

I was curious to see some of these wonders, so used to get the old
woman to come up when any one was ill, consult her, and generally make
much of her. There is no doubt she could diagnose a case well enough.
Matah suffered a good deal with a constant pain in one knee, he was
quite lame from it. He showed it to Bootha one day. She sang a song to
her spirits, then said:

'Too muchee water there; you steam him, put him on hot rag; you drink
plenty cold water, all lite dat go.'

As it happened a medical man was passing a few days afterwards with an
insurance agent. Matah consulted him.

'Hum! Yes, yes. Hot fomentations to the place affected, poultices, a
cooling draught. There's a stoppage of fluid at the knee-joint which
must be dispersed.'

I thought Bootha ought to have been called in consultation.

A girl I had staying with me was taken suddenly and, to us,
unaccountably ill. She was just able to get out of her room into the
drawing-room, where she would lie back on the cushions of a lounge
looking dreadfully limp and utterly washed out. Hearing of her illness
old Bootha came up. I thought it might amuse Adelaide to see an old
witch; she agreed, so I brought her in.

Bootha went straight up to the sick girl, expressed a few sympathetic
sentences, then she said she would ask the spirits what had made
Adelaide ill and what would cure her.

She moved my furniture until she left the centre of the room clear; she
squatted down, and hanging her head began muttering in an
unintelligible dialect. Presently her voice ceased and we heard from
beside her a most peculiar whistling sort of voice, to which she
responded, evidently interrogating. Again the whistling voice from
further away. Bootha then told me she had asked a dead black fellow,
Big Joe, to tell her what she wanted to know; but he could not, so now
she was going to ask her dead granddaughter. Again she said a sort of
incantation, and again, after a while, came the whistling voice
reply--this time from another direction, not quite so loud. The same
sort of thing was gone through with the same result.

Then Bootha said she would ask Guadgee, a black girl who had been one
of my first favourites in the camp, and who had died a few years
previously.

The whistling voice came from a third direction, though all the time I
could see Bootha's lips moving.

Guadgee answered all she was asked. She said Adelaide was made ill
because she had offended the spirits by bathing in the creek under the
shade of a Minggah, or spirit-tree, a place tabooed to all but
wirreenuns, or such as hold communion with spirits.

Of course, according to the blacks, to disturb a shadow is to hurt the
original.

In this Minggah, Guadgee. said, were swarms of bees invisible to all
but wirreenuns, and they are ready always to resent any insult to the
Minggah or its shadow. These spirit-bees had entered Adelaide and
secreted some wax on her liver; their bites, Guadgee said, were on her
back.

Well, that can't be it, I said, I for you never did bathe in the shade
of a Minggah; for, going as you always do with the house-girls, you are
bound to be kept from such sacrilege; they would never dare such
desecration.'

'Which is their Minggah? Is it a big Coolabah between the Bend and the
garden?'

'Yes.'

'Then I did bathe there the last time I went down. I was up too late to
go with the Black-but-Comelys, and as the sun was hot I went further
round the point and bathed in the shade. And the bee-bites must be
those horribly irritating pimples I have across my back.'

The cause of illness settled to her satisfaction, Bootha asked how to
cure it. The patient was to drink nothing hot nor heating but as much
cold water as she liked, especially a long drink before going to bed.
Guadgee said she would come in the night when the patient was asleep
and take the wax from her liver; she would sleep well and wake better
in the morning.

Bootha got up then, came over to the patient, took her hand, rubbed it
round the wrist several times, muttering an incantation; then saying
she would see her again next day, off she went, taking, she told us,
all the spirits away inside her, whence at desire they could be
returned to such Minggah in their own Noorunbah, or hereditary
hunting-grounds, as wirreenuns had placed them in, or to roam at their
pleasure when not required by those in authority over spirits. Our old
spiritualist denies us freedom even in the after-life she promises us.

Adelaide slept that night, looked a better colour the next morning, and
rapidly recovered.

We think old Bootha must be a good physician and a ventriloquist, only
I believe it is said ventriloquists cannot live long, and Bootha is now
over eighty.

Others besides wirreenuns see spirits sometimes, but rarely, though
wirreenuns are said to have the power to conjure them up in a form
visible to ordinary eyes.

Babies are said to see spirits when they are smiling or crowing as if
to themselves; it's to some spirit visible to them but to no one else.

When a baby opens his hands and shuts them again quickly, smiling all
the while, that baby is with the spirits catching crabs!

Dogs see spirits; when they bark and howl suddenly and you see nothing
about, it is because they have seen a spirit.

One person may embody many spirits, but such an one must be careful not
to drink anything hot or heating, such would drive out the spirits at
once. The spirits would never enter a person defiled by the white man's
'grog.'

Old Bootha had an interview with a very powerful spirit after she was
ill, who told her that the spirit of her father was now in Bahloo, the
moon; and that it was this spirit which had cured her, and if she kept
his commands she would live for ever. The commands were never to drink
'grog,' never to wear red, never to eat fish. This was told her fifteen
years ago, never once has she transgressed; her vigour for an old woman
considerably over eighty is marvellous.

She was going away for a trip. Before going she said, as she would not
be able to know when I wanted rain for my garden, she would put two
posts in it which had in them the spirits of Kurreahs, or crocodiles.
As these spirits required water I might be certain my tanks would never
go dry while they were on guard. She asked one of my Black-but-Comelys,
a very stalwart young woman, to help her lift one of these posts into
the garden where she wanted to erect it. The girl took hold of one end,
but in a little while dropped it, said it was too heavy. Old Bootha got
furious.

'I get the spirits to help me,' she said, and started a little
sing-song, then shouldered the post herself and carried it in. These
posts are painted red, black, and white, with a snaky pattern, the
Kurreah sign, on them. She also planted in my garden two other
witch-poles, one painted red and having a cross-bar about midway down
it from which raddled strings were attached to the top; this was to
keep away the Euloowayi, black fellows possessed of devils, who came
from behind the sunset.

The other was a plain red-painted, tapering pine-pole which she said,
when it fell to the ground, would tell of the death of some one related
to an inmate of the house. Should it lean towards the house it foretold
misfortune; or if she were any time away, when she was returning she
would send her Mullee Mullee to sit on the top and bend it just to let
us know. This pole would also keep away the spirits of the dead from
the house during her absence. While she was away there would be no one
to come and clear the place of evil by smoking the Budtha twigs all
round it, as she always did if I were alone and, she thought, in need
of protection.

Old Bootha has what she calls a wi-mouyan, clever-stick. It is about
six feet long, great lumps of beefwood gum making knobs on it at
intervals; between each knob it is painted. Armed with this stick, a
piece of crystal, some green twigs, and sometimes a stick with a bunch
of feathers on top, and a large flat stone, she goes out to make rain.
The crystal and stone she puts under the water in the creek, the
feathered stick she erects on the edge of the water, then goes in and
splashes about with green twigs, singing all the time.

After a while she gets out and parades the bank with the wi-mouyan,
singing a rain-song which charms some of the water out of the creek
into the clouds, whence it falls where she directs it. Once my garden
of roses looked very wilted. I asked Bootha to make rain, but just then
she was very offended with Matah. One of her dogs had been poisoned,
she would make no rain on his country. However, at last she said she
would make some for me. I bound her down to a certain day. The day
came; a heavy storm fell just over my garden, filling the ground tank,
which was almost empty. About two inches fell. Within half a mile of
each side of the garden the dust was barely laid.

Old Bootha's luck stuck to her that time, and I had to give her a new
dress and some 'bacca.' But during the last drought she failed
signally. Her excuse for failing was that a great wirreenun up the
creek was so angry with the white people who were driving away all emu,
kangaroo, and opossums, the black fellow's food, and yet made a fuss if
their dogs killed a sheep for them sometimes, that he put his
rain-stone in a fire, and while he did that no rain would fall. He said
if all the sheep died the white fellows would go away again, and then,
as long ago, the black fellows' country would have plenty of emu and
kangaroo.

We saw a curious coincidence in connection with one of Bootha's
witch-poles in my garden, the pole whose falling foretold death of some
relative of some one in the house.

One afternoon there had been drizzling rain and a grey mist
overshadowing things. Matah went out to look at the chances of a
continuance of rain, the usual drought being on. He called to me to
come and see a curious sky. Looking towards the west I saw a golden
ball of a sun piercing the grey clouds which seemed like a spangled
veil over its face; shooting from the sun was a perfect halo of golden
light, from which three shafts spread into roadways up past the grey
clouds into the vault of heaven. The effect was very striking indeed,
against the grey clouds shaded from silver to almost black.

As we stood waiting for the sun to sink and the afterglow to paint
these clouds, as it did, from shrimp pink and heliotrope to vivid
crimson, we saw Bootha's pole fall. The air was quite still.

'The damp has loosened its setting,' said Matah, 'but we had better
leave it alone and let the old girl fix it up again herself; it may be
taboo to ordinary mortals like us.'

We left it.

That evening a messenger arrived from the sheep station to say my
cook's mother had died just before sunset. The camp were firm believers
in Bootha's witch-stick after that.

It was just as well we did not touch that stick; had we done so, Bootha
says we should have broken out in sores all over our bodies.

They say that long ago the wirreenuns always used to have a sort of
totem wizard-stick guarding the front of their camps.




CHAPTER VII



BIRTH--BETROTHAL--AN ABORIGINAL GIRL FROM INFANCY TO WOMANHOOD


To begin at the beginning, Bahloo, the moon, is a sort of patron of
women. He it is who creates the girl babies, assisted by Wahn, the
crow, sometimes.

Should Wahn attempt the business on his own account the result is
direful; women of his creating are always noisy and quarrelsome.

Bahloo's favourite spot for carrying on the girl manufacturing is
somewhere on the Culgoa. On one of the creeks there is to be seen, when
it is dry, a hole in the ground. As water runs along, the bed of this
creek, gradually a stone rises from this hole. As the water rises it
rises, always keeping its top out of the water.

This is the Goomarh, or spirit-stone, of Bahloo. No one would dare to
touch this stone where the baby girls' spirits are launched into space.

In the same neighbourhood is a clear water-hole, the rendezvous of the
snakes of Bahloo. Should a man go to drink there he sees no snakes, but
no sooner has he drunk some of the water than he sees hundreds; so even
water-drinkers see their snakes.

The name of the hole is Dahn.

Spirit-babies are usually despatched to Waddahgudjaelwon and sent by
her to hang promiscuously on trees, until some woman passes under where
they are, then they will seize a mother and be incarnated. This
resembles the Arunta belief, but with the Euahlayi the spirits are new
freshly created beings, not reincarnations of ancestral souls, as among
the Arunta. To live, a child must have an earthly father; that it has
not, is known by its being born with teeth.

Wurrawilberoo is said to snatch up a baby spirit sometimes and whirl
along towards some woman he wishes to discredit, and through the medium
of this woman he incarnates perhaps twins, or at least one baby. No
doubt were it not for signs of teeth in a spirit-baby of immaculate
conception, many a camp scandal would be conveniently nipped in the
bud.

Babies are sometimes sent directly to their mothers without the
Coolabah-tree or whirlwind medium.

The bronze mistletoe branches with their orange-red flowers are said to
be the disappointed babies whose wailing in vain for mothers has
wearied the spirits who transform them into these bunches, the red
flowers being formed from their baby blood. The spirits of babies and
children who die young are reincarnated, and should their first mother
have pleased them they choose her again and are called millanboo--the
same again.

They can instead, if they like, choose some other woman they know,
which seems very accommodating in those presiding over the
reincarnation department.

Sometimes two baby spirits will hang on one branch and incarnate
themselves in the same woman, who as result is the mother of twins, and
the object of much opprobrium in the camp. In fact, in the old days,
one of the twins would have been killed.

One of my Black-but-Comelys said, on hearing that a woman had twins:

'If it had been me I would have put my fingers round the throat of one
of them and killed it.' The woman who made this speech I had always
looked upon as the gentlest and kindliest of creatures.

The father of the twins has treated his wife with the utmost co