This idea of transmigration into the forms of white men is very remarkable, as it is shared by the negro of Africa, who could not have had any communication with the black native of Australia. And, still more strangely, like the Africans, they have the same word for a white man and for a spirit. The reader may remember that when Mrs. Thompson was captured by the natives, one of them declared that she was his daughter Gi’ôm, who had become a white woman, and the rest of the tribe coincided in the belief. Yet, though she became for the second time a member of the tribe, they always seemed to feel a sort of mistrust, and often, when the children were jeering at her on account of her light complexion and ignorance of Australian accomplishments, some elderly person would check them, and tell them to leave her in peace, as, poor thing, she was nothing but a ghost. It has been found, also, that numbers of white persons have been recognized by the blacks as being the spirits of their lost relatives, and have in consequence been dignified with the names of those whom they represented. Mr. M’Gillivray mentions that the natives of Port Essington have a slight modification of this theory, believing that after death they become Malays. Of their belief in the metempsychosis, or transmigration into animal forms, there are but few examples. Dr. Bennett mentions that on one occasion, at Bérana Plains, when an European was chasing one of the native animals, a native who was with him begged him not to kill it, but to take it alive, as it was “him brother.” When it was killed, he was very angry, and, as a proof his sincerity, refused to eat any of it, continually grumbling and complaining of the “tumbling down him brother.” [Illustration: (1.) AUSTRALIAN WIDOWS AND THEIR CAPS. (See page 777.)] [Illustration: (2.) CAVE WITH NATIVE DRAWINGS. (See page 780.)] The Nauo tribe preserve a tradition which involves this metempsychosis. Once upon a time, a certain great warrior, named Willoo, fought their tribe, and carried off all the women, and killed all the men except two. The survivors climbed up a great tree, followed by Willoo. They, however, broke off the branch on which he was climbing, so that he fell to the ground, and was seized by a dingo below, when he immediately died, and was changed into an eagle hawk, which has ever afterward been called by the name of Willoo. The same tribe think that a small lizard was the originator of the sexes, and in consequence call it by different names; the men using the term _ibirri_, and the women _waka_. Following up the idea, the men kill every male lizard that they can find, while the women do the same by the females.