Descent of Man from Animals 167 
Many other peoples of the Molucca Islands entertain similar beliefs 
and observe similar taboos’. Again, in Ponape, one of the Caroline 
Islands, “the different families suppose themselves to stand in a 
certain relation to animals, and especially to fishes, and believe in 
their descent from them. They actually name these animals 
‘mothers’; the creatures are sacred to the family and may not 
be injured. Great dances, accompanied with the offering of prayers, 
are performed in their honour. Any person who killed such an 
animal would expose himself to contempt and punishment, certainly 
also to the vengeance of the insulted deity.” Blindness is commonly 
supposed to be the consequence of such a sacrilege”. 
Some of the aborigines of Western Australia believe that their 
ancestors were swans, ducks, or various other species of water-fowl 
before they were transformed into men*®. The Dieri tribe of Central 
Australia, who are divided into totemic clans, explain their origin by 
the following legend. They say that in the beginning the earth 
opened in the midst of Perigundi Lake, and the totems (murdus or 
madas) came trooping out one after the other. Out came the crow, 
and the shell parakeet, and the emu, and all the rest. Being as yet 
imperfectly formed and without members or organs of sense, they 
laid themselves down on the sandhills which surrounded the lake 
then just as they do now. It was a bright day and the totems lay 
basking in the sunshine, till at last, refreshed and invigorated by it, 
they stood up as human beings and dispersed in all directions. That 
is why people of the same totem are now scattered all over the 
country. You may still see the island in the lake out of which the 
totems came trooping long ago‘. Another Dieri legend relates how 
Paralina, one of the Muwra-Muras or mythical predecessors of the 
Dieri, perfected mankind. He was out hunting kangaroos, when he 
saw four incomplete beings cowering together. So he went up to 
them, smoothed their bodies, stretched out their limbs, slit up their 
fingers and toes, formed their mouths, noses, and eyes, stuck ears 
on them, and blew into their ears in order that they might hear. 
Having perfected their organs and so produced mankind out of these 
rudimentary beings, he went about making men everywhere®. Yet 
another Dieri tradition sets forth how the Mura-Mura produced the 
race of man out of a species of small black lizards, which may still be 
1J, G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The 
Hague, 1886), pp. 253, 334, 341, 348, 412, 414, 432. 
2 Dr Hahl, ‘‘Mittheilungen iiber Sitten und rechtliche Verhaltnisse auf Ponape,” 
Ethnologisches Notizblatt, Vol. u. Heft 2 (Berlin, 1901), p. 10. 
* Captain G. Grey, A Vocabulary of the Dialects of South Western Australia, Second 
Edition (London, 1840), pp. 29, 37, 61, 63, 66, 71. 
4 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), pp. 476, 779 sq. 
5 A, W. Howitt, op. cit., pp. 476, 780 sq. 
