140 LESSONS FKOM NATURE. [CUAP. VI. 



such existence, but, as a matter of fact, the tribes are not 

 found.&quot; 



As we have said, the native Australians have much pre 

 tension to the post of lowest of existing races, and 



Australians. ,11 .1 T 



we often hear a great deal as to their non-religious 

 condition; nevertheless Mr. Tylor quotes* the Eev. W. 

 Eidley to the effect that &quot; whenever he has conversed with 

 the Aborigines, lie found them to have quite definite tradi 

 tions concerning supernatural beings, as Baime, whose voice 

 they hear in thunder, and who made all things.&quot; Moreover this 

 testimony is reinforced by that of Stanbridge ( ;&amp;lt; T. Eth. Soc.&quot; 

 vol. i. p. 301), who is quoted as asserting that so far from the 

 Australians having no religion, * they declare that Jupiter, 

 whom they call foot of day (Ginabong-Beary), was a chief 

 among the old Spirits, that ancient race who were translated 

 to heaven before man came on earth.&quot; But not only do we 

 thus meet with distinct conceptions of the supernatural where 

 their existence has been denied, but some of the external 

 manifestations of these conceptions are by no means to be 

 despised. Thus in a prayer used by the Khonds of Orissa 

 we find t the following words : &quot; We are ignorant of what it is 

 good to ask for. You know what is good for us. Give it 

 us ! &quot; Mr. Tylor adds : &quot; Such are types of prayer in the 

 lower levels of culture !&quot; 



But the universal tendency of even the most degraded 

 tribes to practices which clearly show their belief in preter 

 natural agencies is too notorious to admit of serious discussion, 

 while the wide-spread, and probably all but universal, prac 

 tice of some kind of funereal rites speaks plainly of as wide 

 a notion that the dead in some sense yet live. As to the 

 power possessed by even the lowest races of apprehending 

 strictly religious conceptions, the annals of the &quot; propagation 

 of the faith&quot; prove it abundantly. The Australians, how 

 ever, are generally believed to be the most hopeless subjects 



* Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 378. 

 t Ibid. vol. ii. p. 335. 



