As soon as I read this passage I perceived that Mr. Threlkeld was
amalgamating such a goblin as the Kurnai call 'Brewin' with the high
God of the Mysteries. In 1881, when Mr. Howitt, with Mr. Fison, wrote
'Kamilaroi and Kurnai,' he knew no higher being among that tribe than
the goblin Brewin. But, being initiated later, Mr. Howitt discovered
that the God of the Mysteries is Mungan-ngaur = 'Our Father' (this
shows the slight value of negative evidence). Women know about Brewin,
the goblin master of sorcerers, but the knowledge of Mungan-ngaur is
hidden from them under awful penalties.[18] Not only I, but Mr. Horace
Hale (1840), came to this opinion: that Koin is a goblin, Baiame a god,
as we shall see. In the same way, where Baiame is supreme, Daramulun is
sometimes a goblin or fiend.
Mr. Threlkeld very properly did not use the name of the fiend Koin as
equivalent to 'God' in his translation of the Gospel of St. Luke into
the native tongue (1831-1834). He there used for God Eloi, and no doubt
did the same in his teaching; he also tried the word _Jeliovaka-birun._
Neither word has taken with the blacks; neither word occurs in their
traditions. The word, though forced on them, has not been accepted by
them. That looks ill for the theory of borrowing.
Here, then, of Mr. Tylor's three negative witnesses, who, before 1840,
knew not Baiame, Mr. Threlkeld alone is of value. As Mr. Hale says, Mr.
Threlkeld was (1826-1857) the first worker at the dialects of those
Baiame-worshipping tribes, the Kamilaroi of the Wellington Valley,
in Victoria. But whence did Mr. Hale get what Mr. Tylor cites, his
knowledge in 1840 of Baiame? He, an American _savant_ on an exploring
expedition, could not well find out esoteric native secrets. I shall
prove that Mr. Hale got his knowledge of Baiame from Mr. Tylor's
own negative witness, Mr. Threlkeld. Mr. Hale says that 'when the
missionaries first came to Wellington,' Baiame was worshipped with
songs. 'There was a native famous for the composition of these songs
or hymns, which, according to Mr. Threlkeld, were passed on,' &c. Mr.
Hale thus declares (Mr. Tylor probably overlooked the remark) that
when the missionaries first came to Wellington (where Baiame is the
Creator) they found Baiame there before them![19] Then, why did Mr.
Threlkeld not name Baiame? I think because Mr. Hale says that Baiame's
name and sacred dance were brought in by natives from a distance,
and (when he is writing) had fallen into disuse.[20] Had, then, a
missionary before 1840 evolved Baiame from Kamilaroi _baia_, 'to make'
(for that is Mr. Tylor's theory of the origin of the word 'Baiame'),
and taught the name to distant natives as a word for his own God; and
had these proselytising distant dancing natives brought Baiame's name
and dance to Wellington? Are missionaries dancing masters? They would
teach prayer and kneeling, or give rosaries; dances are no part of
our religion. To demonstrate missionary influence here we must find
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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