THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA. 33 



REPLY BY THE AUTHOR. 



I have to thank the Chairman and those who have taken part in 

 the discussion for their kind approbation of my paper. I may be 

 allowed to state that it was written to combat the theory held by 

 some ethnologists that our Australian blacks are a race distinct 

 from the rest of mankind. Against this theory my argument is 

 briefly this : The blacks of Western Africa have certain rites and 

 ceremonies, evidently of a religious and sacred character, through 

 which yoxing men have to pass at their opening manhood. The 

 blacks of Australia have similar ceremonies, of a similar import, 

 and in some particulars, identical with those of Africa ; therefore 

 these two races must have drawn their rites of initiation from a. 

 common origin and a common source, for it is impossible to 

 believe that two races of mankind, now located so far from each 

 other, and with no opportunities of contact for thousands of years 

 bygone, should have, apart and of themselves, worked out the same 

 beliefs by mere thinking. My introductory remarks, to which Mr. 

 Stephenson refers, were meant to say that man is found to have 

 everywhere a share in the common religious instinct planted in him 

 by God, and, it may be, in a common primitive revelation given by 

 God. All mankind are therefore in this respect homogeneous, but 

 if men were found anywhere who were void of this instinct, the 

 mere use of the thinking faculty would not lead them to religious 

 beliefs and acts of worship. 



As to the " red heifer," I should have expressed my meaning more 

 accurately if I had said the red colour of the heifer in the Mosaic 

 ordinance had probably some reference to the notions about that 

 colour which we find among the Hamite races, of which the early 

 Egyptians were a part. I did not intend to say that any portion of 

 the Mosaic ritual was borrowed from the Egyptians. To the white 

 race black is the evil colour ; to the black race white is the spirit- 

 colour, and red is evil. 



C 



