Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/452

CHAPTER VIII

BELIEFS AND BURIAL PRACTICES

The universe—A flat earth—A solid sky, resting on the horizon—The heavenly bodies—The rainbow, Aurora and other phenomena—The human spirit; ghosts—The spirits of the dead go to the land beyond the sky—The white man as a ghost—Instances of this belief—Burial practices; death believed to be due invariably to evil magic—Modes of burial—Totemic burials of the Wotjobaluk—The Kurnai Bret—Legendary beings—The Dieri Mura-muras—The Wotjobaluk Bram-bram-gals—The legends of Lohan—Kurnai legends—The Muk-kurnai—The tribal All-father.

The Universe

There seems to be a universal belief among the Australian aborigines that the earth is a flat surface, surmounted by the solid vault of the sky. The legend of the Yuri-ulu tells how, after the holding of the Wilyaru ceremony they went on their wanderings, and finally beyond the mountains passed through what may be briefly termed a "hard darkness" into another country, whence looking back, they recognised what they had passed through as the edge of the sky. The Kapiri legend shows that the earth is supposed to be bordered by water; the Mura-mura Madaputa-tupuru, and the Mankara Waka and Pirna having both reached it in their wanderings.

The Wolgal belief is that there is water all round the flat earth. They know of the sea round the coast for a great distance, and heard of it from the more distant blacks, even before the white men came.

The sky is a something, on the other side of which is another country like this, with trees and rivers. It is there that Thuramulung lives with the Bulabong, the ghosts.

426