The lowest form of humanity has been sought for in Australia, whilst the physical condition of the country and the absence of those animals and herbs that supply human food, have made it a likely quarter to exhibit it. Whether, however, so low a rank in scale of human development be, upon the whole, a fact or exaggeration, it is certain that, upon several points, there has been considerable overstatement. One sample of this sort is the accredited opinion as to the absolute incapacity of the Australian of forming even the rudest elements of a mythology—an opinion which engenders the notion that their intellects are too sluggish for even the evolution of a superstition.
That this was not the case was indicated some years back by Captain Gray, and that there is some exponent of the religious feeling in the shape of a rude form of shamanism, has been shown in the account of the American Exploring Expedition; where the first[73] published details of the Australian mythology, if so it may be called, are to be found—"It is not true, however, as has been frequently asserted, that the natives have no idea of a Supreme Being, although they do not allow this idea to influence their actions. The Wellington Tribes, at least, believe in the existence of a Deity called Baiamai, who lives on an island beyond the great sea to the East. His food is fish, which come up to him from the water when he calls to them. Some of the natives consider him the maker of all things, while others attribute the creation of the world to his son Burambin. They say of him, that Baiamai spoke, and Burambin came into existence. When the missionaries first came to Wellington, the natives used to assemble once a year, in the month of February, to dance and sing a song in honour of Baiamai. This song was brought there from a distance by strange natives, who went about teaching it. Those who refused to join in the ceremony were supposed to incur the displeasure of the god. For the last three years the custom has been discontinued. In the tribe on Hunter's River, there was a native famous for the composition of these songs or hymns; which, according to Mr. Threlkeld, were passed from tribe to tribe, to a great distance, till many of the words became at last unintelligible to those who sang them.
"Dararwirgal, a brother of Baiamai, lives in the far west. It was he who lately sent the small-pox among the natives, for no better reason than that he was vexed for want of a tomahawk. But now he is supposed to have obtained one, and the disease will come no more. The Bálumbal are a sort of angels, who are said to be of a white colour, and to live on a mountain at a great distance to the south-east: their food is honey, and their employment is to do good 'like the Missionaries.'
"It is possible that some of these stories owe their origin to intercourse with the whites, though the great unwillingness which the natives always evince to adopt any customs or opinions from them, militates against such a supposition. But a being who is, beyond question, entirely the creation of Australian imagination, is one who is called in the Wellington dialect, Wandong; though the natives have learned from the whites to apply to him the name of devil. He is an object not of worship, but merely of superstitious dread. They describe him as going about under the form of a black man of superhuman stature and strength. He prowls at night through the woods around the encampments of the natives, seeking to entrap some unwary wanderer, whom he will seize upon; and, having dragged him to his fire, will there roast and devour him. They attribute all their afflictions to his malevolence. If they are ill, they say Wandong has bitten them. No one can see this being but the núrjargir, or conjurors, who assert that they can kill him, but that he always returns to life. He may, however, be frightened away by throwing fire at him (though this statement seems inconsistent with that respecting his invisibility), and no native will go out at night without a firebrand to protect him from the demon.
"There is some difference in the accounts given of this character. By the tribe of Hunter's River he is called Koin or Koen. Sometimes, when the Blacks are asleep, he makes his appearance, seizes upon one of them and carries him off. The person seized endeavours in vain to cry out, being almost strangled. At daylight, however, Koin disappears, and the man finds himself conveyed safely to his own fireside. From this it would appear that the demon is here a sort of personification of the nightmare,—a visitation to which the natives, from their habits of gorging themselves to the utmost when they obtain a supply of food, must be very subject.
"At the Muruya River the devil is called Túlugal. He was described to us, by a native, as a black man of great stature, grizzled with age, who has very long legs, so that he soon overtakes a man; but very short arms, which brings the contest nearer an equality. This goblin has a wife who is much like himself; but still more feared, being of a cruel disposition, with a cannibal appetite, especially for young children. It would hardly be worth while to dwell upon these superstitions, but that they seem to characterise so distinctly the people, at once timid, ferocious, and stupid, who have invented them.
"Their opinions with regard to the soul vary: some assert that the whole man dies at once, and nothing is left of him; others are of opinion that his spirit still survives, but upon this earth, either as a wandering ghost, or in a state of metempsychosis, animating a bird or other inferior creature. But the most singular belief is one which is found at both Port Stephens and Swan River, places separated by the whole breadth of the Australian continent. This is, that white people are merely blacks who have died, passed to a distant country, and having there undergone a transformation, have returned to their original homes. When the natives see a white man who strongly resembles one of their deceased friends, they give him the name of the dead person, and consider him to be actually the same being."
It is difficult to take an exact measure of the extent to which one superstition is grosser than another;—hence, all that can be said respecting the Pantheon, of which Baiamai and Wandong are portions, is that it is as low in the scale of mythologies as any that has fallen under the notice of the writer. Still, those of the Blacks of the Malaccan Peninsula, of Madagascar, and of parts of Africa, are much on the same level.
No sound of s in the Australian languages.—The distribution of the different elementary articulations over the different languages of the earth, has not been sufficiently studied to enable us to predicate anything concerning the absence or presence of particular sounds, as a measure of the perfection or imperfection of human speech; nevertheless, it is clear that the power of pronouncing a number of elementary sounds sufficient to allow of that difference between word and word, which is necessary for clear and precise language, is one of the great conditions of articulate and distinct speech; and hence, a language of which the elementary sounds are too few, or one wherein the power of combining them to their full extent, is wanting, is the exponent of a low degree of humanity. Still more so would one be wherein a large proportion of the sounds is inarticulate—like the sound of the letter h in English, which is a mere breathing rather than a true articulation. In respect to this latter class of facts, the admission of inarticulate elements of speech, there are two only in the whole range of language; one of which is so common as to occur in almost all the dialects of the world, the other is so rare as to be found in one class of tongues only. These are, the power of h as already stated, and the peculiar click which will be noticed in the languages of Southern Africa.
The inability to combine articulations, which, when taken singly, are sufficiently easy of pronunciation, is another sign of deficiency of power over language, as an instrument, or medium, and, in some form or other, it is a common phænomenon; e.g., the sound of s, and the sound of[74]tsh, are pronounceable enough when taken singly; since we can say shest, and we can say tshest. The combination, however, of stsh is difficult—at least to English organs. There is none such in our language; yet it is a favourite juxtaposition in the Slavonic tongues. Again, to a person unused to comparative philology, it may seem strange to be told that in the Finlandic dialects the combination of any two consonants in the same syllable, is rare: and that such words as stab, &c., in order to become pronounceable must be converted into setab, or estab, &c. Yet this inability to combine consonants with one another is, perhaps, the rule rather than the exception in language.