第66章

When they hear the thunder roll and view the livid glare,they flee them not,but rush out and deprecate destruction.They have a dance and a song appropriated to this awful occasion,which consist of the wildest and most uncouth noises and gestures.Would they act such a ceremony did they not conceive that either the thunder itself,or he who directs the thunder,might be propitiated by its performance?That a living intellectual principle exists,capable of comprehending their petition and of either granting or denying it?They never address prayers to bodies which they know to be inanimate,either to implore their protection or avert their wrath.When the gum-tree in a tempest nods over them;

or the rock overhanging the cavern in which they sleep threatens by its fall to crush them,they calculate (as far as their knowledge extends)

on physical principles,like other men,the nearness and magnitude of the danger,and flee it accordingly.And yet there is reason to believe that from accidents of this nature they suffer more than from lightning.

Baneelon once showed us a cave,the top of which had fallen in and buried under its ruins,seven people who were sleeping under it.

To descend;is not even the ridiculous superstition of Colbee related in one of our journies to the Hawkesbury?And again the following instance.

Abaroo was sick.To cure her,one of her own sex slightly cut her on the forehead,in a perpendicular direction with an oyster shell,so as just to fetch blood.She then put one end of a string to the wound and,beginning to sing,held the other end to her own gums,which she rubbed until they bled copiously.This blood she contended was the blood of the patient,flowing through the string,and that she would thereby soon recover.Abaroo became well,and firmly believed that she owed her cure to the treatment she had received.Are not these,I say,links,subordinate ones indeed,of the same golden chain?He who believes in magic confesses supernatural agency,and a belief of this sort extends farther in many persons than they are willing to allow.There have lived men so inconsistent with their own principles as to deny the existence of a God,who have nevertheless turned pale at the tricks of a mountebank.

But not to multiply arguments on a subject where demonstration (at least to me)is incontestable,I shall close by expressing my firm belief that the Indians of New South Wales acknowledge the existence of a superintending deity.Of their ideas of the origin and duration of his existence;of his power and capacity;of his benignity or maleficence;or of their own emanation from him,I pretend not to speak.I have often,in common with others,tried to gain information from them on this head;

but we were always repulsed by obstacles which we could neither pass by or surmount.Mr.Dawes attempted to teach Abaroo some of our notions of religion,and hoped that she would thereby be induced to communicate hers in return.But her levity and love of play in a great measure defeated his efforts,although every thing he did learn from her served to confirm what is here advanced.It may be remarked,that when they attended at church with us (which was a common practice)they always preserved profound silence and decency,as if conscious that some religious ceremony on our side was performing.

The question of,whether they believe in the immortality of the soul will take up very little time to answer.They are universally fearful of spirits.They call a spirit 'mawn'.They often scruple to approach a corpse,saying that the 'mawn'will seize them and that it fastens upon them in the night when asleep.When asked where their deceased friends are they always point to the skies.To believe in after existence is to confess the immortality of some part of being.To enquire whether they assign a 'limited'period to such future state would be superfluous.This is one of the subtleties of speculation which a savage may be supposed not to have considered,without impeachment either of his sagacity or happiness.

["It is remarkable,"says Cicero,"that there is no nation,whether barbarous or civilized,that does not believe in the existence of spirits".]

[As they often eat to satiety,even to produce sickness,may not this be the effect of an overloaded stomach:the nightmare?]

Their manner of interring the dead has been amply described.It is certain that instead of burying they sometimes burn the corpse;but the cause of distinction we know not.A dead body,covered by a canoe,at whose side a sword and shield were placed in state,was once discovered.All that we could learn about this important personage was that he was a 'Gweeagal'(one of the tribe of Gweea)and a celebrated warrior.

To appreciate their general powers of mind is difficult.Ignorance,prejudice,the force of habit,continually interfere to prevent dispassionate judgment.I have heard men so unreasonable as to exclaim at the stupidity of these people for not comprehending what a small share of reflection would have taught them they ought not to have expected.And others again I have heard so sanguine in their admiration as to extol for proofs of elevated genius what the commonest abilities were capable of executing.

If they be considered as a nation whose general advancement and acquisitions are to be weighed,they certainly rank very low,even in the scale of savages.

They may perhaps dispute the right of precedence with the Hottentots or the shivering tribes who inhabit the shores of Magellan.But how inferior do they show when compared with the subtle African;the patient watchful American;or the elegant timid islander of the South Seas.Though suffering from the vicissitudes of their climate,strangers to clothing,though feeling the sharpness of hunger and knowing the precariousness of supply from that element on whose stores they principally depend,ignorant of cultivating the earth--a less enlightened state we shall exclaim can hardly exist.