The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎651v] (193/239)

THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION AND TOTEMISM
AMONG THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.*
I.
THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION.
The theory that in the history of mankind religion has
been preceded by magic is confirmed inductively by the observ
ation that among the aborigines of Australia, the rudest
savages as to whom we possess accurate information, magic
is universally practised, whereas religion in the sense of a
propitiation or conciliation of the higher powers seems to be
nearly unknown. Roughly speaking, all men in Australia are
magicians, but not one is a priest; everybody fancies he can
influence his fellows or the course of nature by sympathetic magic,
but nobody dreams of propitiating gods by prayer and sacrifice.
“It may be truly affirmed,” says a recent writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. on the
Australians, that there was not a solitary native who did not
believe as firmly in the power of sorcery as in his own existence;
and while anybody could practise it to a limited extent, there were
in every community a few men who excelled in pretension to skill
in the art. The titles of these magicians varied with the com
munity, but by unanimous consent the whites have called them
‘ doctors,’ and they correspond to the medicine-men and rain
makers of other barbarous nations. The power of the doctor is
only circumscribed by the range of his fancy. He communes with
spiiits, takes aerial flights at pleasure, kills or cures, is invulner
able and invisible at will, and controls the elements.” 1 Speak
ing of the Australian aborigines, Dr. A. W. Howitt observes :
The belief in magic in its various forms, in dreams, omens,
and warnings, is so universal, and mingles so intimately
with the daily life of the aborigines, that no one, not even those
who practise deceit themselves, doubts the power of other
medicine-men, or that if men fail to effect their magical purposes
the failure is due to error in the practice, or to the superior skill
Macmillan and (Jo., from the
( ) Extracted, with the permission of Messrs
forthcoming third edition of The Golden Bough.
(1) J . Mathew Eaglehawk and Crow, p. 142. 'similarly among the Fuegians
another of the lowest races of mankind, almost every old man is a magician’
theV s lh PP0Se n 'u 6 P0Wer 0f life and death ’ “d to be able to control
the weather But the members of the French scientific expedition to Cape Horn
could detect nothing worthy the name nf relio-ir>n ,, ^
Mission Scientifiqve du Cap “l” vU » aS , 8 “''T 5 ' SCe
P. Hyades et J^Den.ker (plri iwi) pp. 253^7 ^ ^