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THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA. 15 some creative power; although, in this instance, the more intelligent blacks told the missionary that Nurundere was a chieftain who led the tribes down the Darling to the country they now inhabit, where he appears to have met another tribe and had with them a battle, in which he and his tribes were victorious. A writer in 1842 says that, about 200 miles from Sydney, they assembled for a corroboree for rain, and described God as a great blackfellow, high up in the clouds, having arms nine miles long, eyes the size of a house, ever in motion. He never sleeps, flashes lightning, and dries up the waterholes as punishment. They have their songs and festivals for dry weather when on journeys, thus indicating a higher state of things. Every tribe has its ngaitye or tutelary genius or tribal symbol, in the shape of a bird, beast, fish, reptile, insect, or substance. I hereunto add the names of tribes in Victoria:— Tribe. Welinycri... Lathinyeri Wunyakulde Piltinyeri... Locality. Murray Eiver do. do. Lake Alexandrina... Ngaitye. Black duck and black snake with red belly. Black swan, teal, and black snake with grey belly. Black duck. Leeches, catfish (native pomery.) The Narrinyeri have for their neighbours the Wakanuwan and the Merkani tribes; the latter are cannibals, who steal fat people particularly. If a man has a fat wife, he is particular not to leave her exposed, lest she should be seized ; the consequence is that the other tribes confederate against cannibal tribes, and battles are frequent; some 500 to 800 men are mustered on each side. Two stray bullocks having wandered amongst the Lake tribes, they took them for demons, in which they believed, and decamped in great terror ; they named them Wundawityeri, as beings with spears upon their heads. There is a very tragic history of these tribes : that the survivors of the “ Maria,” wrecked on the coast, supposed to be twenty-five in number, men, women, and children, were induced to place themselves under their guidance to lead them to a whaling station at Encounter Bay. The native guides took advantage of their being separated in crossing the Coorong, quietly placed a man behind each of the whites, and at a signal clubbed them. The poor wanderers had marched 80 miles from the wreck, when they were thus treacherously murdered. A party of police were despatched ; they found the camp, in which were large quantities of clothing and other articles. The officers seized two of the most desperate men, and then hanged them up by the neck to a tree, and shot two others. The natives gazed for a minute at the suspended bodies, and then fled. They never cut down the bodies, which remained hanging until they dropped from the trees. In some instances, the native secures his ngaitye in the person of a snake, he pulls out its teeth or sews up its mouth, and puts it in a basket. These snakes have suddenly given birth to thirty young ones, when it becomes necessary to destroy them. It seems that their belief in Ngaitye is also peculiar to the natives of the Taowinyeri. One saw his God in the shark, the eel, the owl, the lizard, fish, and creeping things. How deluded and debased is man without Divine revelation, yet we are told by philosophers and their followers that all men have to do is to study nature, and there read the character of the Deity. But have they ever done so through ages ? Greeks, Egyptians, Eomans, have all changed the glory of God into four- footed beasts and creeping things; even leeks and onions have been worshipped. Why should the aborigines be an exception ? Divine revelation alone teaches man the true character of the Divine Being, “ for man by wisdom cannot find out God.” With regard to the advantages of civilization, they do not believe the same to be the result of a superior intellect, or of religion, but of a resurrection from the dead. “ Blackfellow by-and-by jump up whitefellow,” is the common mode of expressing their belief. The Eev. A. Meyer, in his pamphlet, gives some interesting particulars of these people. He says they do not appear to have any story as to the origin of the world, and they believe in the transmigration of souls. Men have been transformed into animals, even into stones ; to the latter they give the names of men and women, and point out their head, feet, hands, and their waist and face. In one of their dances, one that had been speared and wounded ran into the sea, and was transformed into a whale, and ever afterwards blew the water out of the wound in his neck. Others became fish, others became opossums ; and thus they account for the creation of animals and fish, &c., &c.
