The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎652r] (194/239)

THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION AND TOTEMISM. 163
or power of some adverse practitioner.” 2 On the same subject
Mr. E. M. Curr wrote : ‘‘In connection with the manners and
customs of our aboriginal race a great motor power is the belief
in sorcery or witchcraft. In the everyday life of the Black, a
pressure originating in this source may be said to be always at
work. As it seems to me, no 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. has given this fact quite its
due weight, and yet it is impossible to appreciate correctly the
manners and customs of our tribes until the more salient features
in connection with their ideas about sorcery have been mastered.
The groundwork of sorcery amongst the Blacks is the belief that
several things of importance can be effected by means of charms
and incantations. The tribes differ somewhat in details and cere
monies, but there is no doubt that the system is the same
throughout.” 3
Yet though religion, in the sense in which I use that word,
seems to be nearly unknown among the Australian aborigines,
some of them nevertheless hold beliefs and observe practices
which might have grown into a regular religion, if their develop
ment had not been cut short by European intervention. Thus in
the south-eastern parts of the continent, where the conditions of
life in respect of climate, water, and food are more favourable than
elsewhere, some rudiments of religion appear in a regard for the
comfort of departed friends. For example, certain Victorian tribes
are said to have kindled fires near the bodies of their dead in order
to warm the ghost, but ‘‘ the recent custom of providing food for
it is derided by the intelligent old aborigines as ‘ white fellow's
gammon.’ ” 4 Among the Died, if the deceased was a person of
importance, food is placed for many days at the grave, and in
winter a fire is lighted in order that the ghost may warm himself
at it. 5 Some of the natives of western Australia keep up a fire
for this purpose on the grave for more than a month. But they
expect the dead to return to life, for they detach the nails from
the thumb and forefinger of the deceased and deposit them in a
small hole beside the grave, in order that they may know him
again when he comes back to the world. 6 Again, the natives of
the Herbert river, in north-east Queensland, often put food and
water in the grave, and they deposit with the dead his weapons,
ornaments, and indeed everything he used in life. On the other
(2) A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 356.
(3) E. M. Curr, The Australian Race, i. 45.
(4) J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, pp. 50 sq.
(5) Mr. 0. Siebert, in A. W. Howitt’s Native Tribes of South-East Australia,
p. 448.
(6) R. Salvado, Menwires historiques sur VAustralie (Paris, 1854), p. 261;
Missions Catholiques, x. (1878), p. 247. For more instances of lighting fires for
thk purpose, see Dr. A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia,
pp. 452, 455, 470.
M 2