would seem to be the result of a kind of realism among the 

 natives, whereby a person's ntune became through confusion of 

 thought the same as himself. 



The veneration of pebbles has already been noticed. It has 

 been remarked that the blacks were exceedingly loth to permit 

 white men to see their sacred objects, and they were also con- 

 concealed from their own countrywomen. There were local 

 preferences for certjiiu kinds of jx'libl's, l)ut in general they api:>ear 



The Rev. J. G. Patou s.Muivd .-i small piece of Avood painted red 



by tiie ^>■w Hebiidcans. 31 r. Tai-)lin describes* a practice of 

 sorcery callfd ' n-adtunigi ' followed among the Xarrinyeri, which 

 bears u])Ou tlu- si^nitKHiuf of the piece of stick coloured red atone 

 end. A bone forming tlie remains of a repast of some native is 

 secured and scraped. " A small lump is made by mixing a little 

 hsh-oil and /v/ nrhri'. into a paste and enclosing in it the eye of a 

 ]\lui'ray (^od, and the small piece of the flesh of a dead human 

 '.he top of the hone and a covering 



it, and it is put in the bosom of i 



ency by contact with corruption, after it has 

 rciii.iiiii'd there for some time it is considered fit for use. Should 



tiiward-; tlir pt ison who ate the flesh of the animal from whicii the 

 bniir was taken, he immediately sticks the bone in the ground 

 : ' the fire, so that the lump may melt away gradually. The 

 iiudting and dropping off' of the lump is supposed to cause 

 Could human ingenuity be exercised in a manner more 

 iing, horrifying and repulsive? A similar demand for the 

 I' ! : lins of food or other refuse, of what a person has used is a 

 trait of South Sea Island superstition. Although there is great 

 dissimilarity in language between the Polynesians and Australians, 

 such common traits as a community in objects of worship bespeak 

 a close connection at some time. History proves how easily a 

 form of worship may be superposed upon existing forms whereas 

 it invariably requires violent causes to change language by the 

 substitution of one tongue for another. It might therefore be the 

 case tliat such resemblances nught be due to like transitory causes 

 or say to the drifting of a few Kanaka canoes to Australian shores 

 although from the fact that stones were objects of veneration 

 among the Tasmanians fh<^ inference would be that this at least 

 was a supei-stition connnon to all primitive Papuans. 



The Australians lia\c what may be termed an apprehension of 

 ghosts rather than a belief in them, the relations of the living 



* Native Tribes of South AustraUa, p. 24. 



