attributes which (according to Mr. Howitt, to whom their work is
dedicated), prevail in the mysteries of the natives of New South Wales and
Victoria. (See chapter x.) What they found was a belief in 'the great
spirit, _Twanyirika_,' who is believed 'by uninitiated boys and women'
(but, apparently, not by adults) to preside over the cruel rites of tribal
initiation.[2] No more is said, no myths about 'the great spirit' are
given. He is dismissed in a brief note. Now if these ten lines contain
_all_ the native lore of Twanyirika, he is a mere bugbear, not believed in
(apparently) by adults, but invented by them to terrorise the women and
boys. Next, granting that the information of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen is
exhaustive, and granting that (as Mr. J.G. Frazer holds, in his essays in
the 'Fortnightly Review,' April and May, 1899) the Arunta are the most
primitive of mortals, it will seem to follow that the _moral_ attributes
of Baiame and other gods of other Australian regions are later accretions
round the form of an original and confessed bugbear, as among the
primitive Arunta, 'a bogle of the nursery,' in the phrase repudiated by
Maitland of Lethington. Though not otherwise conspicuously more civilised
than the Arunta (except, perhaps, in marriage relations), Mr. Howitt's
South Eastern natives will have improved the Arunta confessed 'bogle'
into a beneficent and moral Father and Maker. Religion will have its
origin in a tribal joke, and will have become not '_diablement_,' but
'_divinement_,' '_changée en route_.' Readers of Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen will see that the Arunta philosophy, primitive or not, is of a high
ingenuity, and so artfully composed that it contains no room either for a
Supreme Being or for the doctrine of the survival of the soul, with a
future of rewards and punishments; opinions declared to be extant among
other Australian tribes. There is no creator, and every soul, after death,
is reincarnated in a new member of the tribe. On the other hand (granting
that the brief note on Twanyirika is exhaustive), the Arunta, in their
isolation, may have degenerated in religion, and may have dropped, in the