In the Cruise of the Beagle is a parallel anecdote of a Fuegian, Jimmy Button, and his father's ghost.
Without entering into a discussion of ghosts, it is plain that the kind of evidence, whatever its value may be, which convinces many educated Europeans of the existence of "veridical" apparitions has also played its part in the philosophy of uncivilised races. On this belief in apparitions, then, is based the power of the savage sorcerers and necromants, of the men who converse with the dead and are aided by disembodied spirits. These men have greatly influenced the beginnings of mythology. Among certain Australian tribes the necromants are called Birraark.(1) "The Kurnai tell me," says Mr. Howitt, "that a Birraark was supposed to be initiated by the 'Mrarts (ghosts) when they met him wandering in the bush.... It was from the ghosts that he obtained replies to questions concerning events passing at a distance or yet to happen, which might be of interest or moment to his tribe." Mr. Howitt prints an account of a spiritual seance in the bush.(2) "The fires were let go down. The Birraark uttered a cry 'coo-ee' at intervals. At length a distant reply was heard, and shortly afterwards the sound as of persons jumping on the ground in succession. A voice was then heard in the gloom asking in a strange intonation, 'What is wanted?' Questions were put by the Birraark and replies given. At the termination of the seance, the spirit-voice said, 'We are going'. Finally, the Birraark was found in the top of an almost inaccessible tree, apparently asleep."(3) There was one Birraark at least to every clan. The Kurnai gave the name of "Brewin" (a powerful evil spirit) to a Birraark who was once carried away for several days by the Mrarts or spirits.(4) It is a belief with the Australians, as, according to Bosman, it was with the people of the Gold Coast, that a very powerful wizard lives far inland, and the Negroes held that to this warlock the spirits of the dead went to be judged according to the merit of their actions in life. Here we have a doctrine answering to the Greek belief in "the wizard Minos," Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus, and to the Egyptian idea of Osiris as judge of the departed.(5) The pretensions of the sorcerer to converse with the dead are attested by Mr. Brough Smyth.(6) "A sorcerer lying on his stomach spoke to the deceased, and the other sitting by his side received the precious messages which the dead man told." As a natural result of these beliefs, the Australian necromant has great power in the tribe. Mr. Howitt mentions a case in which a group of kindred, ceasing to use their old totemistic surname, called themselves the children of a famous dead Birraark, who thus became an eponymous hero, like Ion among the Ionians.(7) Among the Scotch Highlanders the position and practice of the seer were very like those of the Birraark. "A person," says Scott,(8) "was wrapped up in the skin of a newly slain bullock and deposited beside a waterfall or at the bottom of a precipice, or in some other strange, wild and unusual situation, where the scenery around him suggested nothing but objects of horror. In this situation he revolved in his mind the question proposed and whatever was impressed on him by his exalted imagination PASSED FOR THE INSPIRATION OF THE DISEMBODIED SPIRITS who haunt these desolate recesses." A number of examples are given in Martin's Description of the Western Islands.(9) In the Century magazine (July, 1882) is a very full report of Thlinkeet medicine-men and metamorphoses.
(1) Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 253.
(2) Page 254.
(3) In the Jesuit Relations (1637), p. 51, we read that the Red Indian sorcerer or Jossakeed was credited with power to vanish suddenly away out of sight of the men standing around him. Of him, as of Homeric gods, it might be said, "Who has power to see him come or go against his will?"
(4) Here, in the first edition, occurred the following passage: "The conception of Brewin is about as near as the Kurnai get to the idea of a God; their conferring of his name on a powerful sorcerer is therefore a point of importance and interest". Mr. Howitt's later knowledge demonstrates an error here.
(5) Bosman in Pinkerton, xvi. p. 401.
(6) Aborigines of Australia, i. 197.
(7) In Victoria, after dark the wizard goes up to the clouds and brings down a good spirit. Dawkins, p. 57. For eponymous medicine-men see Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 231.
(8) Lady of the Lake, note 1 to Canto iv.