490 



NATURE 



[September i8, 1890 



If we could fully trust this statement, and it is con- 

 firmed to some extent by Horton, it would be most im- 

 portant as showing the germs of moral ideas among the 

 Tasmanians. To believe in a devil, not simply with horns 

 and hoofs, but living within our own hearts, is an advance 

 which, even in Europe, has as yet been made by a small 

 minority only. The majority of Tasmanians evidently 

 represented their devil in a more material form. Thus 

 Dove says that, " while they had no term in their native 

 language to designate the Creator of all things, they 

 stood in awe of an imaginary spirit who was disposed to 

 annoy and hurt them. The appearance of this malignant 

 demon in some horrible form, was especially dreaded in 

 the season of night." 



Monotheism. — But while some authorities seem inclined 

 to reduce the Tasmanian religion to a belief in a devil 

 only, others seem to look upon it as almost monotheism. 

 Thus Jeffreys, though he admits that the Tasmanians 

 (like most Agnostics) have a very indistinct notion of their 

 imaginary deity, relates that they have a kind of song 

 which they chant to him. He knows that they believe in 

 a good and an evil spirit, but he adds, that they believe 

 the good spirit to be the giver of everything good, and 

 that they do not appear to acknowledge any more than 

 one God. That good spirit had, as we saw, no name, 

 and this, which to some may seem to be a serious defect, 

 is again a feature which the Tasmanian religion shares in 

 common with the religion of far more advanced races. 



Spirit-worship. — Those who hold that religion began 

 everywhere with a belief in spirits may likewise find some 

 support for their theory in the accounts given of the 

 Tasmanians. Henderson states : — 



" A common belief prevails in Tasmania and New South 

 Wales regarding the existence of inferior spirits, who 

 conceal themselves in the deep woody chasms during the 

 day, but who wander forth after dark, with power to 

 injure or even to destroy. Their rude encampments are 

 frequently alarmed by these unearthly visitors, whose 

 fearful moanings are at one time borne on the midnight 

 breeze, and at another are heard mingling with the 

 howling tempest." 



This does not prove as yet that these spirits are always 

 believed to be the spirits of the departed. Milligan, 

 however, after telling us that the Tasmanians were poly- 

 theists — that is, that they believed in guardian angels or 

 spirits, and in a plurality of powerful but generally evil- 

 disposed beings, inhabiting crevices and caverns of rocks, 

 and making temporary abode in hollow trees and solitary 

 valleys, adds " that the aborigines were extremely super- 

 stitious, believing most implicitly in the return of the 

 spirits of their departed friends and relations to bless 

 or injure them, as the case might be. To their guardian 

 spirits, the spirits of their departed friends or relations, 

 they gave the generic name Warrawah, an aboriginal 

 term signifying shade, shadow, ghost, or apparition." 



Immortality of the Soul. — One point on which nearly 

 all witnesses seem to agree is the belief of the Tasmanians 

 in the immortality of the soul. They evidently had not 

 yet advanced so far as to be able to doubt it. Milligan 

 had ascertained that the aborigines of Tasmania, previous 

 to their intercourse with Europeans, distinctly entertained 

 the idea of immortality, as regarded the soul or spirit of 

 man. Robinson, who was present at the burning of a 

 NO. 1090, VOL. 42] 



dead body, received the following explanation from a 

 native : — " Native dead, fire ; goes road England, plenty 

 natives England." What he meant to say was that when 

 a black fellow was dead and had been burnt, he went to 

 England, where there are many black fellows. The name 

 of England, Dreany, as a distant country, and the home 

 of white people, had become with them the name of a 

 new Elysium. Others expected to reappear on an island 

 in the Straits, and to jump up white men. They antici- 

 pated in another life the full enjoyment of what they 

 coveted in this. Backhouse declares that they have some 

 vague ideas of a future existence. Dove remarks that they 

 were persuaded of their being ushered by death into 

 another and happier state, and he considers this as 

 almost the only remnant of a primitive religion which 

 maintained a firm abode in their minds. However, as if 

 to show that no account of their religious persuasions 

 should go uncontradicted, Davies remarks that, " though 

 it is hard to believe that the natives have no idea of a 

 future state, yet from every inquiry, both from themselves 

 and from whites most conversant with them, I have never 

 been able to ascertain that such a belief exists." 



Prayers. — Of course those who maintain that the 

 Tasmanians have no religion, maintain at the same time 

 that they have no kind of worship, no sacrifices, no 

 prayers. But Leigh tells us that, "when any of the 

 family are on a journey, they are accustomed to sing 

 to the good spirit for the purpose of securing his protec- 

 tion over their absent friends, and that they may be 

 brought back in health and safety." Jeffreys relates that it 

 frequently happens that the sealers ... are compelled to 

 leave their native women for several days together. On 

 these occasions these affectionate creatures have a kind 

 of song, which they chant to their imaginary deity. 



Charms.— It is known also that the Tasmanians carried 

 charms, mostly a bone or even the skull of their relatives and 

 friends. In some cases they ascribed healing powers to 

 these bones, or at all events they put them by their side 

 or on their head when they felt sick. This after all is no 

 more than our preserving a lock of hair, and looking at it 

 when we are in trouble or grief. 



Negative evidence is always less trustworthy than 

 positive. Still it may be taken for what it is worth, that 

 observers seem never to have discovered idols (p. 69), 

 totems (p. 75), or fetishes, among the natives of 

 Tasmania. 



Such is the nature of the evidence bearing on the 

 religious ideas of the Tasmanians, which Mr. Roth has 

 collected so carefully and so conscientiously. Nothing 

 can be more full of contradictions, more doubtful, more 

 perplexing. Yet with such materials our best anthropolo- 

 gists and sociologists have built up their systems. 



The Tasmanians, being reputed the lowest of savages, 

 were represented as the children of Nature, and whatever 

 the children of Nature were supposed to have been, when 

 emerging from a purely animal into a more or less human 

 state, the Tasmanians and other savages were called 

 up as witnesses to confirm every kind of psychological 

 speculation. 



We saw that there is hardly any kind of religion which 

 could not be proved to have been the original religion 

 of the Tasmanians. How then can we wish for more 



