CHAPTER VIIICORROBBOREES, OR NATIVE DANCES

LEARNING TO USE THE BOOMERANG

The natives always roast their food. They never touch anything boiled. But not even an aboriginal can cook his dinner unless he has first made a fire. There is nothing of the nature of matches among this people. When they want to make a fire they will take a piece of soft wood, place it on the ground and hold it in position with their feet. Another stick is then taken, pressed down upon the first piece, and made to rotate quickly upon it. Perhaps a few very dry leaves are placed near the place where one stick touches the other and as soon as the friction has caused the light dust to smoulder a gentle blow with the breath will cause the leaves to burst into flame. At other times two shields or kylies will be rubbed together until the dust catches fire. As these are rather wearisome methods of kindling flame, a fire once lighted is seldom allowed to go out. When camp is moved the women may be seen carrying pieces of smouldering charcoal in their hands. The movement through the air causes these to keep alight, and as soon as the new camping ground is reached all that needs to be done is to place them on the ground, pile a few dry leaves and sticks over them, and in a very few seconds a cheerful fire is blazing merrily. So expert are the women in keeping these fire-sticks alight that a party ofthem will travel all day without allowing a single one to go out.

Among the special delights of an aboriginal boy or girl is the memory of the first corrobboree he was ever allowed to see. These corrobborees are very elaborate and curious native dances nearly always performed at night. The women and children are allowed to witness them but only the men actually take part. The black men who live on or near the stations often speak of these as "Debbil-debbil dances," as they are supposed to have some relation to the evil spirits, or "debbil-debbils," of whom the blacks are so terribly afraid.

It takes a long while to dress the men up for these dances. Often they are first pricked all over with sharp stones to make the blood flow, and this blood is then smeared all over their faces and bodies. Little tufts of white cockatoo or eagle hawk down are then stuck all over them, the blood being used as gum. If the doings of some mythical emu ancestor are to be celebrated in the dance only men belonging to the emu totem group will be allowed to perform. An enormous head-dress of down and feathers will next be made and put on, and large anklets of fresh green leaves will complete the array.

A large space will be specially prepared as the ceremonial ground. In front of this huge fires will usually be lighted, and either in front of these, or at the sides, a number of women and older girls will be seated with kangaroo skins drawn tightly across their knees. On these skins they beat with sticks or with their hands, making a noise similar to that which would be made by a number of kettle-drums. All the time the dancing is going on the women keep up a weird, monotonous chant, often beginning on a high key and dying down almost to a whisper. It is not very musical to our ears but the effect is often very strange and wonderful. It sometimes sounds as though a number of singers were gradually coming towards one from afar, then standing still awhile, then turning round and going back again.

One of the performers will come out upon the stage, go through a few curious antics which he calls a dance, then retire whilst another takes his place. After a while, perhaps, all will come on together and the fun for a time will be very fast and furious. The blacks are all so very serious about it, but any white people who happened to be looking on would find it very difficult to restrain their laughter. It would not do to laugh though, as the "debbil-debbils" would be very angry and might revenge themselves upon the blacks before long. After they have been dancing for some time the men present a very curious sight. The perspiration which has been pouring down their faces and bodies has disarranged theirpaint and feathers and their head-dresses have got very much awry. Perhaps, too, they have grown almost dizzy with excitement, so that they certainly look more ludicrous than impressive.

They greatly enjoy these corrobborees and get wildly excited about them, but to us they would appear very monotonous and wearisome. To them, too, they are very full of meaning and they are one of the chief ways in which the young people are taught the legends of their tribes. Sometimes very useful moral lessons are taught by their means. An old man will very likely sit in the centre of a group of boys and carefully explain to them the meaning of all they see. They frequently last for hours, and some of them even require three or four nights if they are to be properly performed, so that the blackfellows spend a very great deal of time in preparing for and performing them.

Some of these corrobborees no women and young children are allowed to see. When this is the case a peculiar piece of sacred stone with a hole in the end, through which a string is fastened, is swung round and round by one of the men. As it is swung it makes a loud booming sound. This instrument is called a Bullroarer, and is looked upon as a very sacred thing. The women and girls are taught that the noise it makes is the voice of the evil spirit to whom it is sacred, warning them to hurry away and not dare to look at the sacred ceremonies which are about to be performed. If any of them disregarded the warning their eyeswould certainly be put out, and they might even be put to death.

When a friendly tribe, or group of natives, is visiting another tribe they will often be entertained by a corrobboree. On such an occasion the most difficult and elaborate of all their dances will most probably be performed. The next night the visitors will provide the entertainment.

Though there is very little idea of religion among the people, as you will see in later chapters, yet these dances have something of a religious character about them. They keep alive the old tribal legends, and the blacks most firmly believe that the spirits of their old ancestors are pleased when corrobborees are properly performed. On the other hand they are grievously offended if anything is done carelessly and without proper thought.

The blacks are great believers in magic and sorcery. Some of these beliefs are quite harmless and merely help to keep them amused, but others prove a terrible curse to them, as they can seldom rid themselves of the idea that another blackfellow somewhere is working them harm by means of sorcery, and they often die from fear.

The magical ceremonies of the aboriginals are of three kinds:—

1. Those by which they think they can control the weather.

2. Those by which they endeavour to secure an abundant supply of food.

3. Those by which they cause sickness and death—the use of "pointing sticks" and bones.

We will speak of each of these in order.

The commonest and most universal of all their magical ceremonies by which they hope to control the weather is that of making rain. Every group of natives has its "rain-makers," but the methods they employ are not everywhere the same. In North-western Australia the rain-maker usually goes away by himself to the top of some hill. He wears a very elaborate and wonderful head-dress of white down with a tuft of cockatoo feathers, and holds a wommera, or spear-thrower, in his hand. He squats for some time on the ground, singing aloud a very monotonous chant or incantation. Then, after a time, he rises to a stooping position, goes on singing, and as he does so moves his wommera backwards and forwards very rapidly, makes his whole body quiver and sway, and turns his head violently from side to side. Gradually his movements become more and more rapid, and by the time he has finished he is probably too dizzy to stand. If he were asked what the ceremonies meant he would most likely be unable to say more than that he was doing just what his great-greatgreatest-grandfather did when he first made rain. Only men belonging to the "rain totem" are supposed to possess this power of making rain. Should rain fall after he has finished he, of course, takes all the credit for it and is a very important personage for a time. If it should fail to rain, as not infrequently happens, he will put it down to the fact that some other blackfellow, probably in some other tribe, has been using some powerful hostile magic to prevent his from taking effect. If he should happen to meet that other blackfellow there would probably be a very bad quarter of an hour for somebody!

Sometimes the rain-maker contents himself with a very much simpler ceremony. He goes to some sacred pool, sings a charm over it, then takes some of the water into his mouth and spits it out in all directions.

In the New Norcia district when the rain-makers wanted rain they used to pluck hair from their thighs and armpits and after singing a charm over it blow it in the direction from which they wanted the rain to come. If on the other hand they wished to prevent rain they would light pieces of sandalwood and beat the ground hard and dry with the burning brands. The idea was that this drying and burning of the soil would soon cause all the land to become hardened and dried by the sun. In fact their entire belief in this "sympathetic magic" as it is called is based upon the notion, perfectly true in a way, that "like produces like," and that for them to initiate either the actions of their ancestors who first produced suchand such a thing will have the same effect as then, or that the doing of something (such as causing water to fall) in a small way will cause the same result to happen on a very much larger scale.

In some parts of Western Australia when cooler weather is desired a magician will light huge fires and then sit beside them wrapped in a number of skins and blankets pretending to be very cold. His teeth will chatter and his whole body shake as though from severe cold, and he is fully persuaded that colder weather will follow in a few days.

In the second class of magical ceremonies are included all those which have for their purpose the ensuring of a plentiful supply of food. The people of wild Australia have no knowledge of those natural laws and forces, much less of that over-ruling Hand controlling them, by which their food supply is assured. They think that everything is due to magic, and therefore the performance of these magical ceremonies occupies a very large amount of their time. You have seen already that every tribe consists of a number of "totem groups" as they are called, and it is to these totem groups that the whole tribe looks to maintain the supply of their particular animals or plant. If the kangaroo men do their duty there will be plenty of kangaroos, but if they should become careless and slothful and begin to think of their own ease and comfort instead of the well-being of the tribe then the kangaroos will become fewer and fewer and perhaps disappear. These kangaroo ceremonies, as we maycall them, are usually performed at some rock or stone specially sacred to this particular animal and believed by the natives to have imprisoned within it, or at any rate in its near neighbourhood, a number of kangaroo spirits who are only awaiting the due performance of the ancient ceremonies to set them free from their prison and again go forth and become once more embodied. The men gather round the rock or stone, freely bleed themselves, and then smear the rock or stone with their blood. As they are "of one blood" with their totem it is, they think, kangaroo blood which is being poured out, and as "the blood is the life" they feel quite sure that it will enable the weak and feeble kangaroo spirits to become quite strong again. Then they arrange themselves in a kind of half-circle and "sing" their charm. No magical ceremonies are ever performed without "singing."

The "cockatoo" ceremonies, by which the natives hope to increase the number of cockatoos are much simpler, but to a white man who might happen to be in the near neighbourhood would prove a very thorough nuisance. A rough image of a white cockatoo will be made, and the man will imitate its harsh and piercing cry all night. When his voice fails, as it does at last from sheer exhaustion, his son will take up the cry till the father is able to begin again.

But of all the forms of magic or sorcery the most terrible is that of "bone-pointing" and "singing-dead."

A man desirous of doing his neighbour some harmwill provide himself with one of these sticks or bones, go off by himself into some lonely part of the bush, place the bone or stick in the ground, crouch over it and then mutter or "sing" into it some horrible curse. Perhaps he will sing some such awful curse as this over and over again:—

Kill old Wallaby Jack, kill him dead-fellow;If he eat fish poison him with it;If he go near water drown him with it;If he eat kangaroo choke him with it;If he eat emu poison him with it;If he go near fire burn him with it;Kill old Wallaby Jack, kill him dead-fellow quick.

Kill old Wallaby Jack, kill him dead-fellow;

If he eat fish poison him with it;

If he go near water drown him with it;

If he eat kangaroo choke him with it;

If he eat emu poison him with it;

If he go near fire burn him with it;

Kill old Wallaby Jack, kill him dead-fellow quick.

Then he will go back to the camp leaving the bone in the ground. Later he will return and bring the bone nearer to the camp. Then some evening, after it has grown dark, he will creep quietly up to the man whom he wants to injure and secretly point the bone at him. The magic will, he believes, pass at once from the bone to his victim, who soon afterwards will without any apparent cause sicken and die unless somebullya, or medicine man, can remove the curse. The bone is then taken away and hidden, for should it be found out that he had "pointed" it he would be killed at once.

YOUTH IN WAR PAINT

All the blackfellows, men, women, and children alike are horribly afraid of these pointing-bones, and believe fully in their awful power, and anyone who believes that one of them has been pointed at him is almost certain to die. Men in the full vigour ofearly manhood and middle life have wasted away, just as though they had been stricken with consumption, because they could not rid themselves of the belief that this horrible magic had entered them. A man coming from the Alice Springs to the Tennant Creek caught a slight cold, but the natives at the latter place told him that some men belonging to a tribe about twelve miles away had taken his heart out by means of one of these pointing sticks. He believed their story, and though there was absolutely nothing the matter with him but a cold, simply laid himself down and wasted away. Probably several hundreds of men, women, and children die in wild Australia every year from fear of these awful bones and sticks alone. All sickness and death is ascribed to magic.

The only person who is believed able to remove this evil magic is the "bullya," or medicine man. These medicine men are believed to have had mysterious stones placed in their bodies by certain spirits. It is the possession of these stones that gives them their power to counteract evil magic. Lest these stones should dissolve they have to be very careful never to eat or drink anything hot. You could probably never tempt one of them to take a cup of hot tea. Should he do so all his powers as a doctor would be gone. Medicine men, however, are not called in for simpler ailments, though these too are attributed to magic. A common remedy for head-ache is to wear tightly round the forehead a belt of woman's hair. This is believed to have the power of driving out the magic.Another frequent but much nastier medicine is several blows on the head with a heavy waddy. It is wonderful how few doses are required! Should a man be suffering from back-ache, or stomach-ache, he will lie down on the ground with the painful part of his body uppermost, and his friends and relations will jump on him one at a time till the "magic" goes.

One day a man came home from a long journey through the bush. Soon afterwards he was attacked by rheumatism and severe lameness. The medicine men told him that one of his enemies had seen his tracks and had put some sharp flints into his footmarks. His friends searched the track, found the flints, and removed them. Almost immediately the rheumatism and lameness left him and he was completely cured.

On another occasion a medicine man was called in to see a blackfellow who was lying very nearly at death's door. He said that some men in another tribe had charmed away his spirit but it hadn't gone very far and he could fetch it back. He at once ran after it and caught it just in time, so he said, and brought it back in his rug. He then threw himself across the sick man, pressed the rug over his stomach, made a few "passes" somewhat after the manner of a conjurer and so restored the spirit. The sick man speedily recovered.

These medicine men are not guilty of any trickery. They believe in their powers as thoroughly as the best European doctors believe in theirs. They are never paid for their services, but, of course, they expect tobe looked up to by the other members of the tribe and to be spared all labour and unpleasantness. They also expect the chief delicacies to be reserved for them, and that others should, as far as possible, do their bidding. No one would willingly offend a medicine man. His control of magic is much too dangerous a weapon to be used against them, far more deadly in its effects than spear or boomerang. He can put a curse in even more easily than he can get it out, and if he puts it in who is there to take it away? So you can see on the whole the medicine man has rather an easy time of it, but as no one wills it otherwise all are satisfied.

What a boon a few medical missions would prove in wild Australia—a few earnest Christian men and women who would go and heal the bodily diseases of the black people, and by their faithful teaching destroy this awful curse of belief in magic! How glad we all ought to be that wherever missions have been started, a hospital has been one of the first buildings to be erected. At Yarrabah, at Mitchell River and at the Roper River, all of which you will learn more fully about later on, the missionaries are devoting much time and thought to healing the sick, just as our Blessed Lord did when He was here among men. Soon after the missionaries have settled in a new home the sick from all around will come flocking in to have their needs attended to, and often stay in the settlement long after they are cured to learn the wonderful new message those missionaries havebrought about the Great Healer and all His Power and Love.

When a death has occurred in a blackfellow's camp, strange scenes are often witnessed. Perhaps just before it took place the dying man or woman would be brought out of themiawhere he or she was lying and placed on a rug or blanket in the open air. Themiawould then be pulled down to prevent the spirit remaining within it and thus becoming an annoyance and perhaps a source of danger to the survivors.

After death has actually occurred the mourners paint themselves all over with pipe-clay, orwilgi, rub huge quantities of clay and mud into their hair, and sit around the corpse making a most hideous wailing. They rock themselves to and fro for hours, keeping up the mourning cry all the time, but every now and again the women will relieve the monotony by a series of loud piercing shrieks.

The bodies of very young children sometimes remain unburied for some considerable time. The mothers will carry them about with them wherever they go in the hope that the spirit, seeing their grief and so young a body, will be full of pity and return.

With this exception dead bodies are usually disposed of within a few hours of death. The commonest method is burial, but bodies are sometimes burned, sometimes eaten, and not infrequently placed in trees, the bones being afterwards raked down and buried.

Graves are usually shallow, but the bodies are sometimes buried in a sitting position, sometimes standing. In Western Australia the hands, and at times the feet, are tied together in order to prevent the ghost from moving about and doing mischief. Among some tribes the right thumb is cut off before burial so that the dead man may be unable to use a spear. In other tribes a spear and a boomerang will be placed in the grave as the dead man may require them in the beautiful sky country to which his spirit will go. On one of the North-West Australian sheep stations a dead man who had been an inveterate smoker had his pipe and a stick of tobacco placed by his side. Very often a hole is left in the grave to enable the spirit if it wishes to do so to go in and out. In some places the grave is covered with boughs. In other places a hut will be built over it in the hope that the ghost will thus be kept within bounds and will refrain from wandering about and annoying the living. The ground around the grave will be swept clean with boughs and occasionally watched for footmarks. After the burial the camp will as a rule be moved.

When bodies are cremated a huge pile of dry grass and boughs is first prepared. Above this a platform,also of boughs, is built, and the body placed upon it and covered with more boughs. A fire-stick is then applied by one of the nearest female relatives.

The most curious of all aboriginal methods of disposing of a dead body is that which is usually called "tree-burial." This is probably done in the hope of speedy re-incarnation, but when it becomes evident, say after a year has passed, that the spirit does not intend to return the bones are raked down with a piece of bark and placed in a cave and there buried. In the Kimberley district of Western Australia there are numbers of these burial caves. The arm-bone, however, is not buried with the rest. It is solemnly laid aside, wrapped in paper bark, and often elaborately decorated with feathers. When everything is in readiness preparations are made for bringing it into the camp with great ceremony. The bone is first placed in a hollow tree while some of the men go off in search of game which they bring into the camp and solemnly offer to the dead man's nearest male relatives. Next day the bone itself will be brought in and placed on the ground. All at once bow reverently towards it, the women meanwhile maintaining a loud wailing. It is then given to one of the dead man's female relatives who places it in her hut until it is required for the final ceremonies some days afterwards. These final ceremonies begin with a corrobboree, and the bone is then snatched by one of the men from the woman who has charge of it and taken to another of the men who breaks it with an axe. As soon as theblow of the axe is heard the women flee, shrieking, to their camp and re-commence their wailing. The broken bone is then buried and the mourning ceremonies for the dead man are at an end.

The most revolting of all methods of disposing of dead bodies is that of eating them. This, however, you will be glad to learn is not very often employed. Sometimes it is pure cannibalism that makes them do so. Mothers have been known to join in a meal upon the bodies of their own children. Usually only the bodies of the famous dead, great warriors for instance, or of enemies killed in battle are thus disposed of. In some tribes it is looked upon as the most honourable form of burial. The reasons for this custom you will understand better when you have read carefully the chapter on Religion.

There is one very curious custom connected with mourning which I am sure you will be interested in hearing about, and the reason for which you will also come to understand when you have read a few more chapters. So far as I know it is not practised among any other people. Until the period of mourning is at an end the nearest female relatives of the dead man are placed under a rule of silence, and are not allowed to utter a single word. Perhaps for as long a time as two years they are only allowed to make use of "gesture language." Any attempt to speak on their part would at once be visited with heavy punishment perhaps even with death itself. It sometimes happens if there have been several deaths in a tribethat all the women are under this ban, and it very seldom occurs that all are allowed to speak.

In this chapter and the next you shall hear some of the stories which the little children of wild Australia are told about the earth, the origin of man, the sun, the moon, and the stars, and about how sin and death came into this world of men. These tales fall very far short of those beautiful stories which have come down to us in the early chapters of Genesis, but the blackfellows all believe them to be strictly true. Often when they are seated around the camp fire on some bright star-lit night when the light from the fire will be shining brightly on their eager, dusky faces these old, old tales will be told again as only an old black can tell them.

They believe the earth to be flat and to stand out of the water on four huge lofty pillars, like very big tree trunks, and some think that above the sky, which they believe to be a solid dome arching over the earth, is a beautiful sky country where Baiame lives and the spirits. This Baiame is a god who is specially concerned in the ceremonies of making men, and is pleased when those ceremonies are properly performed. This sky country is much more beautiful and much betterwatered than their own, and there are great numbers of kangaroo and game so that blackfellows who go there are never hungry and always have plenty of fun.

The road to it is the milky way which is made up of the spirits of the dead.

In many tribes the sun is regarded as a woman because among the blackfellows it is a woman's work to make fire. Here is one of the most remarkable of all the "sun stories" which the old blackfellows tell the children.

In olden days before there was any sun the birds and beasts were always quarrelling and playing tricks upon one another. A kind of crane called the courtenie, or native companion, was at the bottom of nearly all the mischief. In those days the emus lived in the clouds and had very long wings. They often looked down upon the earth and were particularly interested in the courtenies as they danced. One day an emu came down to earth and told them how much she would like to dance too. But the courtenies only laughed, and one of the oldest ones among them told the emu she could never dance while she had such long wings. Then all folded their wings and appeared to be wingless. The poor simple emu at once allowed her wings to be cut quite short, but no sooner had she done so than those wicked courtenies unfolded their beautiful wings and flew away. Then the kookaburra—or laughing jackass—burst into a loud laugh to think that the emu could be so silly. Later on the emu had a bigbrood. A native companion saw her coming and at once hid all her chicks except one. "You poor silly emu," she said, "why don't you kill all your chicks except one? They'll wear you out with worry if you don't. Where do you think I should be if I went about with a family like that? You'll break down from over-work if you let them all live." So the silly emu destroyed her brood. Then the native companion gave a peculiar cry and out from their hiding-place came all her chicks one after the other. When the emu saw them she flew into a great rage and attacked that native companion and twisted her neck so badly that in future she was only able to utter two harsh notes.

Next season the emu was sitting on her eggs when the courtenie came along and pretended to be very friendly. This was more than that poor tormented emu could stand and she made a rush at the courtenie. But the courtenie leaped over the emu's back and broke all her eggs except one. Maddened with rage the emu made for her again, but she was not nearly agile enough, and met with no better success than before. The courtenie took the one remaining egg and sent it flying to the sky. At once a wonderful thing happened. The whole earth was flooded with brilliant and beautiful light. The egg had struck a huge pile of wood which a being named Ngoudenout, who lived in the sky, had been collecting for a very long time and set it on fire. The birds were so frightened by the beautiful light that they made uptheir quarrel there and then and have lived happily ever after, but ever since then the courtenies have had twisted necks and only two harsh notes, and emus have had very short wings and have never laid more than one egg. Ngoudenout saw what a good thing it would be for the world to have the sun, and so ever since then he has lit the fire again every day. Of course when it is first lighted it doesn't give very much heat, and as it dies down towards night the world begins to get cold again. Ngoudenout spends the night collecting more wood for next day.

There are numerous other stories about the sun, but this one is sufficient to enable you to see the kind of beliefs the people of wild Australia have on these matters. Now listen to one which will show you how some of them account for the phases of the moon and for the stars.

Far away in the East is a beautiful country where numbers of moons live, a very big mob of moons, whole tribes in fact. These moons are very silly fellows. They will wander about at night alone, although a great big giant lives in the sky who as soon as he sees them cuts big pieces off and makes stars of them. Some of the moons get away before he can cut much off, but sometimes he cuts them nearly all up and hardly any moon is left at all.

"Why don't stars come out in the day-time?" a young child will ask and will receive this answer:—

"The stars are all very afraid of the sun. If he finds them out in the day-time he gets very angryand burns them all. So they never come out till he has gone down under the earth. Sometimes, though, a little star will come and see if he has gone, but most of them wait in their country till he is really down."

Some of the black children in some parts of the far North call hailstones rainbow's eggs, and worms baby rainbows, because they have noticed sometimes after a rainbow has been seen hailstones have fallen. After these have melted, or, as they would probably say, burrowed into the ground, numbers of worms have appeared. This is why they call worms baby rainbows.

The black people are nearly always very much frightened at eclipses either of the sun or moon. They have two chief ways of accounting for them. Some tribes will say that a hostile tribe has hidden in or near the luminary and held bark in front of it, whilst others put the whole trouble down to an evil spirit which has got in front. Whatever their belief as to the cause of an eclipse may be, when one takes place they will all throw spears at it in the hope that the hostile tribe or evil spirit will find things too uncomfortable to remain.

There are three ways of accounting for shooting stars. Some believe them to be the spirits of the dead. Some think that they are firesticks thrown down by some evil spirit who has his home in the sky, whilst others would say that a medicine man flying through the air has let his firestick fall.

Each part of Australia has its own stories as to the origin of the world and man. It would be impossible to tell them all, especially when one remembers that no two tribes believe exactly the same. There is a more or less general belief in a Creator who made the sun, moon, and stars, the earth, trees, rocks, birds, animals, and man, everything, in fact, except women. Their origin is left more or less unaccounted for. No Creator could have bothered himself to make such unimportant things as women. Different tribes have different names for the Creator. In some parts he is called Baiame or Byamee, in others Pundjel or Punjil, in others Daramulun. Here is a story about Daramulun which the men of the Yuin tribe tell.

Ever so many moons ago Daramulun lived on the earth with his mother. The earth in those days was hard and bare and there were no men and women upon it, only reptiles, birds, and animals. So Daramulun made trees. Soon afterwards men and women appeared, but whether Daramulun made them or whether they just came up out of the earth we have not been told. One day a thrush caused a great flood, and all the people were destroyed except a few who managed to crawl out and take refuge on MountDromedary. From these have come the Yuin tribe of to-day. Daramulun, after the flood was over, called them all together, and told them how they were to live and catch and cook their food, and gave them their laws. At the same time he gave the medicine men power to use magic. Then he went away to the sky country. When a man dies Daramulun meets his spirit and takes care of it.

Now listen to a story about Punjil which the old Victorian blacks have frequently told:—

One day Punjil was walking about the earth with a big knife in his hand. With this knife he cut two pieces of bark. Then he mixed some clay and made two black men, one very much blacker than the other. He took all day over them and when he had finished he found that one had curly hair and the other smooth. The curly-haired one he named Kookinberrook, the other Berrookboru. At first they were like dead fellows, but after he had blown into their nostrils they began to move about.

Now the very next day Punjil's brother Pallian was paddling about in a creek in his canoe. Presently he saw two heads come up out of the water. Then two breasts followed. Pallian paddled up to them and found that they were two women. He took them to Punjil who was very pleased and blew into their nostrils exactly as he had done in the case of the two men he had made the day before. Then Punjil gave them names, one he called Kunewarra, the other Kimrook. After this he put a spear in the hand ofeach man and gave a digging stick to each of the women and showed them how to use them. Then he gave the women to the men as their wives.

Here is a Flood story which you will like to compare with the beautiful story in Genesis. You will notice these among other differences. Though the people of wild Australia believe in a Flood they have no idea that it was sent as a punishment from God. On the other hand it was purely an accident. Again you must remember they have no belief in God like our own. There are various vague, indefinite beliefs in one or more creators and in a Supreme Being who is pleased when the different ceremonies are properly performed. There is nothing more than this. There is, for instance, no idea at all of sin as being against God. They only understand offences against the tribe which the old men must punish, or indignities against the spirits of the departed which those spirits themselves will revenge. The Supreme Being never interferes in purely human concerns.

Once upon a time there was no water anywhere upon the earth. All the animals, therefore, met in solemn council to find out the reason of this remarkable drought. After a great deal of foolish talking they discovered the secret. An enormous frog had swallowed all the water and the only way he could be made to disgorge it was by being made to laugh. So one after another they all tried to amuse him but none of them succeeded in even making him smile. At last a big eel came and he began to wriggle. Thiswas more than the frog's gravity could stand. He opened his mouth and laughed loudly. At once great streams of water began to pour from his jaws, and in a short time so much water had come from him that a great flood followed, and many of the animals and some of the people perished in the waters. A large pelican then determined to do his utmost to save the people. He made a canoe and paddled in it from one island to another. Wherever he found any blacks he took them into his canoe and so saved them. Before very long, however, the pelican had a quarrel with the blacks about a woman, and as a punishment was turned into stone.

In the really strict sense of the word the people of wild Australia have no religion. There is, as you have already seen, some faint belief in a Supreme Being and Creator who is known by a different name in the different tribes, but this belief in a Supreme Being makes no difference to their lives and they do not recognize that they have any duties towards him. He is pleased when certain ceremonies are performed properly, and angry when they are performed carelessly or not at all, but beyond that he takes no interest in them. They, for their part, do not think it necessaryto worry themselves about him. They never say any prayers, they offer no sacrifices, they build no temples or altars, and they make no idols. For these reasons we usually say they have no religion.

That which takes the place of religion among them is fear of evil spirits, the ghosts of the dead. These ghosts are always looked upon as hostile, and always ready to do them harm. This belief is commonly known as Animism. It is a general belief among all very primitive peoples. Among some races, like the Kols of India, to whom the natives of Australia are believed by some people to be very closely akin, it takes the form of devil worship, and constant offerings are made to turn away the anger of the spirits, but there is no attempt at propitiation, as this is called, among the people of Australia. They live in constant fear of spirits it is true, but their efforts are all in the direction of avoiding them, or keeping them at a distance. For this reason they will seldom camp beneath trees for the ghosts of men and women whose bodies have been placed in those trees to decay may still be hovering about among them and would come down and harm them if they dared to sleep under their shadow. For this same reason, too, they never mention, as you have already been told, the names of their dead. If the ghost heard them talking about him he would conclude they were not sufficiently sorry and would be very angry and be sure to harm them. A white man was once talking with an aboriginal boy, and in the course of his talk he three timesmentioned rather loudly the name of a dead black man. The boy was so frightened that he ran away as fast as he could into the bush and did not appear again for several days. When a death occurs any other members of the tribe will, as you have already been told, at once change their names, and should the dead man or woman have borne the name of some plant or animal a new name will at once be given to it.

The aboriginals probably came to believe in spirits through their dreams. In those dreams they have visited friends in some far-off tribe, fought some battle, or engaged in a hunt, yet their bodies, they know, have not moved from their resting-place. How could they have done this unless they had a spirit which was able to pass out of their body during sleep and go away on a journey. Some tribes give the name ofmūrŏpto this spirit. At death themūrŏpleaves the body and either goes across the sea, or along the milky way into the beautiful sky country, or continues to haunt the scenes of its earthly life and especially the place where the body is buried, so becoming a source of danger and annoyance to those who remain alive. This is why most tribes move their camp after a death has taken place and why the tribes in the Kimberley District of Western Australia nearly always cross the river. The ghost will have great difficulty in finding them and in any case he could not cross water.

Some tribes believe that as soon as the dead body has completely turned to dust the soul goes back tothe rock or water-hole whence the totemic ancestor, or great-great-greatest-grandfather of the dead man, originally came. There it quietly waits until some little baby is born in the immediate neighbourhood, when it passes into his body and so again becomes incarnate.

You will have noticed from all this how the religion of the aborigines, like all heathen religions, is based, wholly on fear. There is only one religion, the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is based on Love. This is the religion we want to teach them. It alone, we know, can change their lives and drive out that awful fear. How it is changing them you will learn in the next few chapters. "The Christians," said a traveller in North Australia one day, "always look so happy. The frightened look is altogether gone. You can always tell them." The man who said this was, I am sorry to say, a Christian only in name, and had long been known as a strong opponent of all missionary work among this poor unhappy people, but this makes his words all the more remarkable. They should help to stir us up to do much more in the future than we have done in the past, and make us keener than ever to put forth all our efforts to spread the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ among them that His beautiful light may shine more and more in them and that men may take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus.

There is an old Persian story, which some of you may know, of a wonderful magic carpet on which one only needed to stand in order to be spirited away to some other land to which one wanted to go and see strange scenes and unwonted sights.

Let us take our place on this magic carpet and utter the correct formulæ, and in a few moments we shall be far away in distant and beautiful Yarrabah on the North-eastern shores of Queensland. The name means "beautiful spot," and it is, indeed, a lovely part of wild Australia where the tropic sun looks down upon beautiful palm-trees and where birds of the gayest plumage make their home, and where the coasts are washed with coral seas.

GIRLS' CLASS AT YARRABAH SCHOOL

Yarrabah is a mission reserve which the Queensland Government gave to the Australian Church about twenty-five years ago. It covers about sixty thousand acres and no white man except the missionaries is allowed to make a home upon it. Its beginnings were most discouraging, and nothing but the indomitable faith of the first missionaries could have kept them to their work. The tribes settled on the "reserve" were extremely fierce, and within a week or two of the actual founding of the mission three men of the tribe were killed and eaten. The native whowas more responsible than any others for these acts of murder and cannibalism was some years afterwards converted to Christ, baptized and confirmed, and has for years been a respected and trusted Christian. It was among such tribes that the missionaries went and made their home. Thousands of people would have been afraid to have ventured amongst them, but the missionaries (and there was a lady in their number) were so full of the love of Jesus and so earnest in their desires to win these poor degraded tribes for Him, that they never stopped to think about being afraid. It was very different to going and settling down in some town or village in China or India where there were other white people near and the dangers were not so great. There were very few white people, and probably no white women at all, nearer than Cairns, thirty miles away to the North. Only the wild monotonous bush was around them and fierce cannibals from whom at any moment a poisoned spear might come. At first all the missionaries could do was wait. A rough little house was put up close to the sea where they lived, said their prayers, and waited. After a while a few natives came and built theirmiasnear the missionaries' home. They soon came to see that these were kind, good people who only wanted to be friendly, and little by little they began to give their confidence. Soon a little hospital was erected where sick aboriginals were attended to and healed, and a little school where the children whom their parents allowed to come and live with the missionaries weretaught. To-day, about twenty-two years after its first founding, Yarrabah is one of the most wonderful industrial missions in the whole Island Continent. Please take note of those words "Industrial missions," for I want you to remember that it has been found that it is very little good indeed teaching the children or the men and women of wild Australia about the redeeming love of our Lord Jesus Christ unless they are at the same time taught the duty of honest and useful work. The mere preaching of the Gospel and the provision of a place of worship which would be enough among a more civilized people is very far from enough in wild Australia. So all missions in that land are what we call industrial.

If we visited Yarrabah to-day, by means of our magic carpet, what should we see?

First we should see the head station, and we should be told that there were five other settlements, little Christian villages in charge of an aboriginal catechist, within a few miles of the head station, and that altogether no less than 350 natives and half-castes were living happy, contented, well-conducted lives.

The first visit some of us would be inclined to pay would be to the school where we should see quite a number of dusky little scholars. The head teacher is a white—one of the missionaries—but most of the teaching is done by several excellent and fully-qualified aboriginals who themselves learned their very first lessons in that same school and were once wild blacks. Some might like to hear the childrenread and would probably be quite surprised to find that they were able to acquit themselves quite as well as British children of the same age. This would be true, too, of their writing. Some of the older children would be able to bring out some really beautiful specimens of penmanship for our admiration. They also do sums, but these, perhaps, they do not take to quite so kindly as some of the other subjects. Still, we should probably find that they do almost as well as children of other lands of the same age. But the subject which is regarded as of supreme importance at Yarrabah school is the religious teaching. If the teachers were asked to quote some text which might be taken as the motto of their school I think they would choose those words from the last verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of the Book of Job, "The fear of the Lord that is wisdom," and they would tell us that the most important of all knowledge is the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why the Christians at Yarrabah have not only attained considerable intellectual development but have also, in many cases, become true saints. A few years ago at an examination in religious subjects, open to all the children in Queensland, white and coloured alike, the whole of the twenty-three first-class certificates which were awarded, were won by children of Yarrabah.

Perhaps as we came out of the schools we should like to pass into the homes where the children live. Many of them, however, remain at school as boarders,their parents living in one or other of the little villages on the reserve. How different these homes are to the rough, uncomfortable humpies described in Chapter IV which form the homes of the poor children of the wilderness. Each home at Yarrabah is a little cottage of wood and iron with two or more rooms which has been built by the people themselves. It stands in an enclosed garden in which mangoes, sweet potatoes and other vegetables are growing and for part of the year beautiful flowers bloom brightly. In some of the cottages the little flower patch is the children's especial care. Everything within the house is beautifully neat and clean. The older girls help their mothers to keep it so. They wash and make and mend, and as many of them dress entirely in white there is plenty of work to do.

After our visit to some of the homes we pass into the little Church dedicated in the name of the first British martyr, St. Alban. The very name reminds us of that for which the church stands. It stands there to turn the heathens into good soldiers of Jesus Christ like St. Alban. It is far too small for the needs of the little community which lives in its neighbourhood, and we hope before very long to be able to build a much larger and better one. It is of white wood and across the chancel is carried a scroll with these words upon it, "Lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left."

Services are held in it every day at 7A.M.and 7P.M., and nearly every one comes. On one side are seatedthe boys and young men, on the other the girls and unmarried women. The missionaries and the married couples take their places at the western end, while the babies and infants squat and occasionally crawl about on the floor. Most of them sit or stand very reverently with folded arms. A little black curly-headed boy plays the harmonium, and the choir enters noiselessly. Their feet are bare, their long surplices reach nearly to the ground, their scarlet loin cloths sometimes showing through them. An aboriginal catechist in all probability leads the service, also wearing a surplice. Everything is done exactly as it would be in an English village church. On Sundays the psalms as well as the canticles are sung. On other days they are sometimes read but very, very slowly, for it must be remembered that only the younger members of the congregation, those brought up on the mission, are able to read. The lessons from Holy Scripture, too, are read very slowly. The reverence and devotion of all alike, the hearty singing not only with the lips but with the heart, are a wonderful illustration of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for these dusky children of a savage and primitive people.

After church each morning there is an interval for breakfast and then a parade for work. The children pass into the school, the men and boys to their allotted tasks on the farm or in the different workshops, the women and unmarried girls to their various domestic duties. All are given something to do and all arerequired to perform their tasks to the satisfaction of those set over them. Yet I do not think anyone would talk about "tasks" at Yarrabah. There is a suggestion of unpleasantness, of an imposition about the word, but no one looks at work in that light at Yarrabah. It has become almost second nature and a delight to them here. Sometimes, of course, when the weather is very hot and close and sultry they do not work as well as at other times, but what white man or child would not prefer to rest under such circumstances? Even the tiniest children like to feel they are doing something and very soon learn to run about and pick up rubbish and fallen leaves and so help to keep the settlement clean and tidy.

Up on the hillside is the hospital where the sick children, as well as the men and women are carefully nursed and cared for by a kind black matron and nurses.

There is a branch of the Church Lad's Brigade, and a most efficient brass band.

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