Magic and Religion. Lang Andrew

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СКАЧАТЬ that, till he was formally initiated, Mr. Howitt had no suspicion of its existence.33

      Mr. Tylor may rest in his hypothesis of borrowing, but for the reasons assigned we think it impossible in our, and his, selected North American cases, and inconceivable as an explanation of the Australian phenomena.

      Finally, Mr. Tylor candidly adduces a case in which Mr. Dawson, taking great and acknowledged trouble to collect evidence, learned from the blacks that they had believed in a benevolent being, Pirnmeheal, 'whose voice is the thunder,' 'before they knew of the existence of Europeans,' who 'have given them a dread of Pirnmeheal.'34 We add Mr. Howitt's testimony to a supreme being ruling 'from Omeo to Shoalhaven River, from the coast to Yass Gundagai,' concerning whom 'old men strenuously maintained that it was so before the white men came,' they themselves, now aged, having only learned the secret when they were initiated 'and made men' at about the age of fourteen.35 In the same essay of 188536 Mr. Howitt tells of a native whose grandfather initiated him as to an all-seeing personality, Bunjil, 'up there,' who would mark his conduct. 'This was said before the white men came to Melbourne' (1835). Bunjil, said William Beiruk, a black, was called 'our father' 'before white men came to Melbourne.'

      I might give other evidence in favour of the unborrowed character of Australian belief in some such being as Baiame. Thus Mrs. Langloh Parker, the careful collector of 'Australian Legendary Tales,'37 was herself interested in the question. She approached the subject as a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who allows hardly a germ of religion to the Australians. On hearing what she did hear, as to Baiame, from the tribesmen, she asked one of them whether the idea was not borrowed from Europeans. The old warrior answered that if it were so the young men would know most about Baiame. But they know nothing, apparently because the old rites of initiation have fallen into disuse. Nor are they much more familiar with Christian doctrine. This black man had logic in him. Mrs. Langloh Parker came, contrary to her prepossessions, to the same opinion as our best authority, Mr. Howitt, that the Australian belief is unborrowed.

      This lady, who has taken very great pains in criticising and collecting her evidence, kindly sent me an essays of Mr. Manning's from 'The Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales,' vol. xvi. p. 159, 1883. Mr. Manning was an early settler in the north border of the southern colony. About 1832 he was in Europe, and met Goethe, whose undiminished curiosity, he being then about eighty-five, induced him to bid Mr. Manning examine Australian beliefs. He did, but lost his notes, made in 1845-1848. In these notes, which he later recovered, Mr. Manning used Christian terminology, instead of making a verbatim report. Struck by the certainly singular savage idea of a son (begotten in some cases, in others a kind of 'emanation') of the superior being, he employed theological phrases. The son, in his story, sprang from a liquid like blood, which Boyma (Baiame) placed in a vessel within a crystal oven. The myth of such a birth, as Mr. Hartland remarks, is familiar to Zulus and Red Indians.38 It is therefore not likely to be of European origin. But Mr. Manning's evidence, despite its terminology, so far agrees with Mrs. Langloh Parker's account of the extant Baiame belief as to 'make a case for further inquiry;' so Mr. Hartland concedes. I ask for no more.39 Thus Mr. Manning has Ballima, Mrs. Langloh Parker has Bullimah, for a kind of floral paradise of souls, very beautifully described in the lady's 'More Australian Legendary Tales.'

      Both authorities mention prayers for the dead; Mrs. Langloh Parker quotes what Mr. Hartland calls 'very interesting funeral rites and prayers for the dead.' He adds: 'We want to be assured whether these are usual, by means of an accurate description of the customary ceremonies, and that she does not give us.' I shall make inquiry; but what does it matter whether the rites, in the overthrow of native manners, are now usual or not? Baiame is unknown to the new generation, as we have seen. Prayers to him, then, cannot be usual. The point is that Mr. Manning in 1845, and Mrs. Langloh Parker in 1898, both mention the prayers for the dead, certainly not borrowed from Protestants. There is a similar account, only that of an unnamed runaway convict who lived with the black fellows in North-Western Australia.40 By a mythical contradiction, the soul of the hero Eerin, prayed for in Mrs. Langloh Parker's tale, now inhabits a little bird.

      Another curious point needs to be considered by the advocates of the theory of borrowing. Mr. Hartland offers some deserved censures on Mr. Manning's terminology in his report of Australian religion (1845-1848). Mr. Manning says: 'They believe in the existence of a Son of God, equal with him in omniscience, and but slightly inferior to his Father in any attribute. Him they call "Grogoragally." His divine office is to watch over all the actions of mankind, and to bring to life the dead to appear before the judgment seat of his Father, who alone pronounces the awful judgment of eternal happiness in heaven (Ballima) or eternal misery in "Oorooma" (hell), which is the place of everlasting fire (gumby). The Son … acts as mediator for their souls to the great God, to whom the good and bad actions of all are known.' As Mr. Hartland truly says, 'this is not an accurate scientific account.' Even Mr. Manning's 'capital letters' are censured.

      Probably the native theologian really said something like this: 'Boyma' (Baiame) big man; very budgery man. Him sit on big glass stone. Him son Grogoragally can see everything and go everywhere. See budgery man, like him; see bad man, plenty too much devil devil. Likes budgery man; no likes bad man: he growl too much. Budgery man die, Grogoragally tell Boyma; Boyma say, 'Take him Ballima way, plenty budgery place.' Bad man die; Boyma say, 'Take him Oorooma way, plenty too hot, him growl there.' Grogoragally plenty strong, him not so strong as Boyma.

      This, or something like this, would be the actual statement of the dusky theologian. It is easily rendered into Mr. Manning's terminology; but at the same time the native, in his rude lingua franca, or pidgin English, could hardly do justice to his creed. It was his creed; Mr. Hartland himself recognises the original character of the native version of the Supernatural Birth.41

      Here are certainly 'Biblical analogies,' as Mr. Tylor recognises, but they are as certainly unborrowed.

      Now let us fancy that a traveller, not a Greek scholar, is storm-driven to a hitherto unknown island. He finds a race of heathen white men. He describes their religion. 'Despite their polytheism, they have certainly been visited by Christian missionaries, or are descended from a Christian colony. They believe in a supreme being whom they call Zeus. He has a son named Apollon or Phoebus Apollon, who is all-knowing and all-seeing. He acts as a kind of mediator between Zeus and men, to whom, as one of the native hymns says, he "delivers the counsels of the Father, and his unerring will." This Apollo is consulted through an hysterical woman, who lives in a cave. After being convulsed, like other savage mediums, she speaks in a kind of verse. Her advice is often obscure and ambiguous, but generally of a moral tendency.

      'This son of Zeus is believed to be the only god who really knows the future and the will of his father. There is another son, Hermes, one of whose duties is to conduct the souls of the dead into the presence of their judge, who is not Zeus, but another god.

      'There is also a son of Apollo, whom I take to be only a kind of double of that god; he sometimes appears to his worshippers as a serpent: his name is Asclepius.

      'This reminds us of what Winslow writes about the Red Indians of New England. They have a supreme being, Kiehtan, whose son, Hobamok, appears in their assemblies as a serpent. Ridley has the same story about the blacks of Australia. I infer, then, that the natives of this island have inherited or been taught some elements of Christianity, as in the case of Apollo, the mediator between Zeus and men; and Hermes, the Guide of Souls as they call him, psychopompos in their language. But they have mixed up all this with degrading superstitions.'

      Of course our traveller has arrived among Greeks, and quotes the Homeric СКАЧАТЬ