The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎653v] (197/239)

1G0 THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION AND TOTEMISM
Such a being, from Bunjil to Baiame, is Mami-ngata, that is,
‘ our father ’; in other words, the All-father of the tribes.
Although it cannot be alleged that these aborigines have con
sciously any form of religion, it may be said that their beliefs are
such that, under favourable conditions, they might have deve
loped into an actual religion, based on the worship of Mungan-
ngaua, or Baiame. There is not any worship of Daramulun) but
the dances round the figure of clay and the invocating of his name
by the medicine-men certainly might have led up to it. If such a
change as a recognised religion had ever become possible, I feel
that it would have been brought about by those men who are the
depositaries of the tribal beliefs, and by whom in the past, as I
think, all the advances in the organisation of their society' have
been effected. If such a momentous change to the practice of a
religion had ever occurred, those men would have readily passed
trom being medicine-men to the office of priests.” 10
On the other hand, ” the Central Australian natives, and this is
true of the tribes extending from Lake Eyre in the south to the
far north, and eastwards across to the Gulf of Carpentaria, have
no idea whatever of the existence of any supreme being who is
pleased if they follow a certain line of what we call moral conduct
and displeased if they do not do so. They have not the vaguest
idea of a personal individual other than an actual living member
of the tribe who approves or disapproves of their conduct, so far
as anything like what we call morality is concerned. ... It must
not, however, be imagined that the Central Australian native has
nothing in the nature of a moral code. As a matter of fact he has
a very strict one, and during the initiation ceremonies the youth
is told that there are certain things which he must do and certain
others which he must not do, but he quite understands that any
punishment for the infringement of these rules of conduct which
are thus laid down for him, will come from the older men and
not at all from any supreme being, of whom he hears nothing
whatever. In fact, he then learns that the spirit creature, whom
up to that time, as a boy, he has regarded as all-powerful, is merely
a myth, and that such a being does not really exist, and is only
an invention of the men to frighten the women and children ” 11
The aborigines of Central Australia are not the only people
who have invented bugbears for the moral edification of
youth. The Ona Indians of Tierra del Fuego pretend that
the natural features of their country, such as the woods
and rocks, the white mists and running waters, are haunted
506 °^' W ' H ° WiU ’ ^ Tribe * ° f SouthEa8t Australia, pp. 500,
(11) Spencer and Gillen, Norton Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 491 sq.