SEMON'S RESEARCHES IN AUSTRALIA. z 9 



orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and violet, which they call " beiar," 

 and it is doubtful whether they discriminate even with the eye 

 between the more delicate hues. 



A race of men devoid of the faculty of abstraction would neces- 

 sarily be very deficient in religious conceptions. This is the case 

 with the Australians, who do not show the faintest traces of a belief 

 in the existence of supernatural beings, and therefore do not worship 

 idols, perform sacrifices, or offer prayers. The ghosts they fear are 

 the spirits of the dead, who, not having been properly buried, are 

 doomed to walk the night. But, however great may be the terror 

 inspired by these nocturnal spooks, no attempt is made to propitiate 

 them; the easiest way of warding off their attacks is to huddle as 

 closely as possible round the camp fire. Disease and death are not 

 regarded as natural events, but dreaded as the work of the sorcerers 

 of hostile tribes, whose influence can be counteracted only by sor- 

 cerers of their own tribe. In parts of southern and western 

 Australia a somewhat higher stage of religious evolution has pro- 

 duced a vague sort of demonism with a crude cosmology, in which 

 the founder of the tribe figures as the creator of the world. Here 

 we have an example of ancestor worship as a primitive cult marking 

 the transition from demonism to deism. The Australians have no 

 myths or sagas in the sense of fictitious narrations or traditions of 

 heroic achievements and historical events, but only the simplest 

 tales of magic and wizardry, such as are common to the childhood 

 of the race, and refer almost exclusively to the metamorphosis of 

 men into animals. Thus a bad man was put to death by having 

 spears hurled into him, and thereby changed into an Echidna 

 aculeata, or porcupine ant-eater. To the minds of the natives this 

 origin explains the mysterious character of this nocturnal creature, 

 which wanders noiselessly about, and on the slightest suspicion of 



Papuan Bow of Palm Wooi>, with String of Rattan Fiber and Bamboo Arrow. 



danger vanishes into the earth as by enchantment. The koala, or 

 phascolarctus, is also a magically transformed black man, and a 

 charming story is told of the friendship between a child and a 

 " wonge " (poisonous serpent), which the parents killed, whereupon 

 the child pined away and died. This tale is told in a German 

 Marclien, and the incident is said to have actually happened not long 

 since in New England. 



