Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2) — John Shaqi
Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2)Lang, Andrew
Religion
Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Lang, Andrew
Myth; Mythology; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
In what has been, and in what remains to be said, it must be remembered
that the higher religious ideas attributed to the Australians are not
their only ideas in this matter. Examples of their wild myths have
already been offered, they are totemists, too, and fear, though they do
not propitiate, ghosts. Vague spirits unattached are also held in dread,
and inspire sorcerers and poets,** as also does the god Bunjil.***
* J. A. I., xii. pp. 156, 157.
** Ibid.y xvi., pp. 330, 331. On Bunjil.
*** In Folk-Lore, December, 1898, will be found an essay,
Mr. Hartland, on my account of Australian gods. Instancing
many wild or comic myths (some of them unknown to me when I
wrote 'The Making of Religion'), Mr. Hartland seems to argue
that these destroy the sacredness of other coexisting native
beliefs of a higher kind. But, on this theory, what religion
is sacred? All have contradictory myths. See
Introduction.
Turning from early accounts of Australian religion, say from 1835 to
1845, we look at the more recent reports. The best evidence is that
of Mr. Howitt, who, with Mr. Fison, laid the foundations of serious
Australian anthropology in _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_ (1881). In 1881,
Mr. Howitt, though long and intimately familiar with the tribes of
Gippsland, the Yarra, the Upper Murray, the Murumbidgee, and other
districts, had found no trace of belief in a moral Supreme
Being. He was afterwards, however, initiated, or less formally let into
the secret, by two members of Brajerak (wild) black fellows, not of
the same tribe as the Kurnai. The rites of these former aborigines are
called Kuringal. Their supreme being is Daramulun "believed in from the
sea-coast across to the northern boundary claimed by the Wolgal, about
Yass and Gundagai, and from Omeo to at least as far as the Shoalhaven
River.... He was not, as it seems to me, everywhere thought to be a
malevolent being, but he was dreaded as one who could severely punish
the trespasses committed against these tribal ordinances and customs,
whose first institution is ascribed to him.... It was taught also that
Daramulun himself watched the youths from the sky, prompt to punish by
sickness or death the breach of his ordinances." These are often mere
taboos; an old man said: "I could not eat Emu's eggs. _He_ would be
very angry, and perhaps I should die." It will hardly be argued that
the savages have recently borrowed from missionaries this conception of
Daramulun, as the originator and guardian of tribal taboos. Opponents
must admit him as of native evolution in that character at least. The
creed of Daramulun is not communicated to women and children. "It is
said that the women among the Ngarego and Wolgal knew only that a great
being lived beyond the sky, and that he was spoken of by them as Papang
(Father). This seemed to me when I first heard it to bear so suspicious
a resemblance to a belief derived from the white men, that I thought it
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