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THE CANADIAN JOURNAL. 



NEW SERIES. 



A T o. VI.— NOVEMBER, 1856 



SUPERSTITIONS AND TRADITIONS OF THE 

 ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA. 



BT JAMES BROWNE, TORONTO. 



In a former paper communicated to the Canadian Institute, the man- 

 ners and customs of the Aborigines of the western coast of Australia 

 have been sketched from personal observation.* I shall now endea- 

 vor to complete the picture of that singular phase of savage life which 

 came under my own notice, while resident on the Australian conti- 

 nent, by depicting the psychological characteristics of the same 

 degraded race, and narrating some of the most remarkable super- 

 stitions and traditional ideas, which a long residence among them 

 brought to my knowledge. It has been often affirmed that there is 

 no people so savage and ignorant as not to have some idea of a 

 Supreme Being, or belief in a superior power, whom they worship in 

 some form or character, and of whom they live in awe and dread. 

 But if such is not the case with the natives of the western coast of 

 Australia, and indeed of Australia generally, they so nearly approxi- 

 mate to it, that I believe it can be asserted without a doubt, that so far 

 as religion, or any rudiment of divine worship is concerned, these 

 savages are as ignorant as the beasts of the forest. From them no 

 prayers ascend to propitiate good spirit or evil. The) have neither 

 temple nor idol, — neither object of worship, nor any semblance of 

 religious rites. 



* Vide: "The Aborigines of Australia," ante, p. 251. 



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