ingenuity, and so artfully composed that it contains no room either for a
Supreme Being or for the doctrine of the survival of the soul, with a
future of rewards and punishments; opinions declared to be extant among
other Australian tribes. There is no creator, and every soul, after death,
is reincarnated in a new member of the tribe. On the other hand (granting
that the brief note on Twanyirika is exhaustive), the Arunta, in their
isolation, may have degenerated in religion, and may have dropped, in the
case of Twanyirika, the moral attributes of Baiame. It may be noticed
that, in South Eastern Australia, the Being who presides, like Twanyirika,
over initiations is _not_ the supreme being, but a son or deputy of his,
such as the Kurnai Tundun. We do not know whether the Arunta have, or have
had and lost, or never possessed, a being superior to Twanyirika.
With regard, to all such moral, and, in certain versions, creative Beings
as Baiame, criticism has taken various lines. There is the high a priori
line that savage minds are incapable of originating the notion of a moral
Maker. I have already said that the notion, in an early form, seems to be
well within the range of any minds deserving to be called human. Next, the
facts are disputed. I can only refer readers to the authorities cited.
They speak for tribes in many quarters of the world, and the witnesses
are laymen as well as missionaries. I am accused, again, of using a
misleading rhetoric, and of thereby covertly introducing Christian or
philosophical ideas into my account of "savages guiltless of Christian
teaching." As to the latter point, I am also accused of mistaking for
native opinions the results of "Christian teaching." One or other charge
must fall to the ground. As to my rhetoric, in the use of such words as
'Creator,' 'Eternal,' and the like, I shall later qualify and explain it.
For a long discussion between myself and Mr. Sidney Hartland, involving
minute detail, I may refer the reader to _Folk-Lore_, the last number of
1898 and the first of 1899, and to the Introduction to the new edition of
my 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion' (1899).
Where relatively high moral attributes are assigned to a Being, I have
called the result 'Religion;' where the same Being acts like Zeus in
Greek fable, plays silly or obscene tricks, is lustful and false, I have
spoken of 'Myth.'[3] These distinctions of Myth and Religion may be, and
indeed are, called arbitrary. The whole complex set of statements about
the Being, good or bad, sublime or silly, are equally Myths, it may be
urged. Very well; but one set, the loftier set, is fitter to survive, and
does survive, in what we still commonly call Religion; while the other
set, the puerile set of statements, is fairly near to extinction, and is
usually called Mythology. One set has been the root of a goodly tree: the
other set is being lopped off, like the parasitic mistletoe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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