TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. 29 



Neither at Cape York, nor in any of the Islands 

 of Torres Strait, so far as I am aware, do the aho- 

 rig-ines appear to have formed an idea of the exis- 

 tence of a Supreme Being* ; the ahsence of this 

 behef may appear questionable, but my informant, 

 Gi'om, spoke quite decidedly on this point, having 

 frequently made it the subject of conversation with 

 the Kowrarea'a blacks. The sino-ular belief in the 

 transmig'ration of souls, which is g-eneral among* the 

 whole of the Austrahan tribes, so far as known, also 

 extends to the islands of Torres Strait. The people 

 holding* it imagine that, immediatel}' after death, 

 they are chang-ed into white people or Europeans, 

 and as such pass the second and final period of 

 their existence ; nor is it any part of this creed that 

 future rewards and punishments are awarded. It 

 may readily be imagined that when ig-norant and 

 superstitious savag*e tribes, such as those under con- 

 sideration, were first visited by Europeans, it w^as 

 natural for them to look wdth wonder upon beings 

 so strang-ely different from themselves, and so in- 

 finitely superior in the powers conferred by civihza- 

 tion, and to associate so much that was wonderful 

 with the idea of supernatural ag*ency. At Darnley 

 Island, the Prince of Wales Islands, and Cape York, 

 the word used at each place to sig-nify a white man, 

 also means a g*host.* The Cape York people even went 



* Frequently when the children were teasing Gi'om. they would 

 be gravely reproved by some elderly person telling them to leave 

 her, as " poor thing ! she is nothimj, only a ghost !" (igur ! uri 

 longa, mata markai.) 



