religion, it may be said that their beliefs are such that, under favourable conditions, they might have developed into an actual religion, based on the worship of Mungan-ngana or Baiame." "The blacks," he concludes, "had no knowledge of God, and … did not practice prayer." The so-called "All-father" was a former chief, and is now "the Headman in the sky country, the analogue of the Headman of the tribe on the earth." "The Australian aborigines do not recognise any divinity, good or evil, nor do they offer any kind of sacrifice, as far as my knowledge goes."[1]
In Mr. Thomas' careful work on The Natives of Australia (1906), in which he summarises the researches of previous observers, prayer is not mentioned, sacrifices and offerings are dismissed as non-existent, and there is no question of propitiation. There is a belief in ghosts, but that is practically all. They have long and elaborate ceremonials, which, however, are magical, not religious; no deity has any part in them. The Australians have no sacred groves, or lakes, or mountains.
Lastly, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, whose work Mr. Lang calls "the best and most thoroughly scientific study ever made of such a race," say:—"We searched carefully in the hope of finding traces of a belief in such a being, but the more we got to know of the details of the native beliefs, the more evident it became that they had not the faintest conception of any individual who might in any way be described as a "High God of the Mysteries.""[2]
I had hoped that, after all, the difference between Mr. Lang's views and mine was not perhaps so fundamental as might at first sight appear.
In the last edition of Myth, Ritual, and Religion (1906) he said:—"As to the Australians, I mean no more than that, among endless low myths, some of them possess … the germs of a sympathetic religion."[3] A germ of religion is, however, a very different thing from a religion.
While for the reasons above given confining my reply mainly to the Australians, the evidence as regards some other races seems to me also conclusive. Take, for instance, two races,—
- ↑ A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 491, 503, 507, 756.
- ↑ The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 503.
- ↑ P. xviii.
