Reviews. 521
Really, as the Australians do so too, I hardly see how I can help following the evidence. To be sure, as Mr. Howitt observed, they use the term " father " in the classificatory sense, but they also use it in the personal sense. Moreover they use "father" as a title of reverence, and, as Christians speak of God as " the Father," black fellows apply the same term to the being whom they regard as primal and most potent ; while their application of the word " Father " to a Colonial Governor is on a level with our speaking of "Father Schmidt." Really I do not see how I have erred in this matter.
Pere Schmidt gives a point to Mr. Hartland for saying that we find no All Father who at the beginning lived in the sky. But before the beginning Atnatu of the Kaitish lived beyond the sky, and still inhabits that region. I must not, however, go on defending myself, — to tell the truth, Pere Schmidt often does me that service, even in cases where I should have been at a loss. The personal character of these All Fathers is certainly in striking contrast to that of Zeus in Greek mythology, but Bunjil is accused of seizing two women whom Karwin had made or created, and of giving Karwin satisfaction by spearing him in the thigh. I do not feel tempted to excuse Bunjil, but Pere Schmidt thinks it worth while to do so. From my point of view the contrast between the Zeus of everyday fabliau and the Zeus to whom Eumaeus prays is quite natural and inevitable, and nobody denies that Zeus is a supreme being.
The same view I would extend to Bunjil, but Pere Schmidt defends his character in a very complex argument which I do not clearly follow and cannot condense. It partly turns on the relations of Bunjil with the Eaglehawk of mythology, and with the stars (pp. 202 et seq.), and "sex-totems" come into the discussion. It is too ramified for me, but at all events, in a variant of the Karwin myth given by Miss Howitt, Karwin is the sinner, and Bunjil merely punishes his wickedness. Let us give Bunjil the benefit of the doubt ! The discussion leads Pere Schmidt into theories about astral and lunar myths, no longer intelligible to the blacks, and to a system of the blending of two distinct cultures and races in S.E. Australia: a crisp-haired and a straight-haired race. " Solar heroes " come into the system, and,
