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 abo- 

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

 tence of a Supreme Being- ; the absence of this 

 belief may appear questionable, but my informant, 

 Gi'om, spoke quite decidedlj'- on this point, having- 

 frequently made it the subject of con^^ersation with 

 the Kowrareg-a blacks. The sing-ular belief in the 

 transmigration of souls, which is g-eneral among- the 

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

 extends to the islands of Torres Strait. The people 

 holding it imagine that, immediately after death, 

 they are changed into white people or Europeans, 

 and as such pass the second and final period of 

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

 future rewards and punishments are awarded. It 

 may readily be imagined that when ignorant and 

 superstitious savage tribes, such as those under con- 

 sideration, were first visited by Etu-opeans, it was 

 natural for them to look M'ith wonder upon beings 

 so strangely different from themselves, and so in- 

 finitely superior in the powers conferred by civiliza- 

 tion, and to associate so much that was wonderful 

 with the idea of supernatural agency. At Darnley 

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

 the word used at each place to signify a white man, 

 also means a ghost.* The Cape York people even went 



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

 he gravely reproTed by some elderly person telling them to leave 

 her, as " poor thing ! she is nothing, only a ghost !" (li^Mr / uri 

 longa, mata markai.) 



