I return to my additional evidence for Australian religion. As will be
seen, it does not come within Mr. Frazer's definition, but will anybody
deny that the belief is religious? The evidence is that of Mr. A. L. P.
Cameron,[50] and contains a brief comparative glossary of words used
by different tribes of New South Wales to indicate the same objects.
Mr. Cameron had been interested in the black fellows since 1868 at
least, when their numbers were much larger than at present. He had
seen gatherings of from 800 to 1,000. The tribes chiefly in question
dwelt along the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers, and do not include the
Kamilaroi, the Kurnai, and Coast Murring of whom Mr. Howitt speaks.
As to religion, ghosts of the dead are believed to visit the earth,
and to be frequently seen. The blacks 'will often resort to peculiar
devices to avoid mentioning the names of the dead,' a practice hostile
to the development of ancestor worship. No ghost of a man can grow into
a god if his name is tabooed and therefore forgotten. 'The people of
all these tribes appear to have a belief in a Deity, and in a future
state of some kind.' The Wathi Wathi call this being Tha-tha-pali; the
Ta-ta-thi call him Tulong. Mr. Cameron could not obtain translations
of these names, any more than we know the meaning of the names Apollo
or Artemis. The being 'is regarded as a powerful spirit, or perhaps a
supreme supernatural being. They say that he came from the far north,
and now lives in the sky. He told each tribe what language they were to
speak. He made men, women, and dogs, and the latter used to talk, but
he took the power of speech from them. The Ta-ta-thi do not care to
speak much of Tulong, and say that he does not often come to the earth.
Although it seems that in many of the Australian tribes there is only a
very dim idea as to the attributes of the Supreme Being and of a future
state, yet in the Ta-ta-thi and its allied tribes there is certainly a
belief not only in a future state of existence, but also in a system of
rewards and punishments. My Ta-ta-thi informant stated that one of the
doctors ascended long ago through the sky, and there saw a place where
wicked men were roasted.'
Mr. Cameron, of course, had the strongest suspicions of a 'place' so
ostensibly Christian. To this we return.[51]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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