social evolution, but also with conclusions which have been drawn by Spencer and Gillen from the analogous legends of the Arunta tribes.
It seems to me that these legends may be taken to be not merely mythical, but rather dim records of former events, such as the wanderings of the early Australians, dressed in a mythic garb, and handed down from generation to generation, from father to son, in the sacred ceremonies. After observing the reverence with which the blacks hear such legends, I can see plainly how true their feeling is when they say to a question, "Why do you do such or such a thing?" "Our fathers told us to do so."
The legends show what the Mura-muras are supposed to have been. At the present time they are said to inhabit trees, which are, therefore, sacred. It is the medicine-men alone who are able to see them, and from them they obtain their magical powers.
Some of these legends identify natural features of the country with the Mura-muras; for instance, the thermal springs near Lake Eyre with the Mura-mura Kakakudana, and certain petrifactions to the south-east of Lake Eyre where some Mura-mura women were turned into stone. Professor Baldwin Spencer has told me that the equivalents of the Mura-muras occur with the Urabunna, and the places are pointed out where they died and where their spirits still are. One of these places is shown in the accompanying illustration of a mass of rocks which are said to be the spot where some Pigeon ancestors went into the ground.
This evidently connects the Mura-mura beliefs of the Dieri with the Alcheringa beliefs of the Arunta. So far, however, I have not been able to find that the Dieri have the Arunta belief in the reincarnation of the ancestor, nor have I found any trace of it in the tribes of South-east Australia.
For comparison with the Mura-mura beliefs, I quote
from Spencer and Gillen a few comprehensive passages descriptive of the beliefs of the tribes of which the Arunta are the representatives (type).[1]
- ↑ Spencer and Gillen, op. cit. pp. 73, 119, 120, 377, 378, 513.
