United States or Laos ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If a people like the Andamanese, or the Australian tribes whom we have studied, had such a conception as that of Puluga, or Baiame, or Mungan-ngaur and then, later, developed ancestor-worship with its propitiatory sacrifices and ceremonies, ancestor-worship, as the newest evolved and infinitely the most practical form of cult, would gradually thrust the belief in a Puluga, or Mungan-ngaur, or Cagn into the shade.
It is logically conceivable that savages may have worshipped deities like Baiame and Darumulun before they had evolved the notion that Tom, Dick, or Harry has a separable soul, capable of surviving his bodily decease.
Ridley translated our 'God' by 'Baiame. He supposed that native term, which he found and did not introduce, to be a derivative from the verb BAIA, or BIAI, 'to make. Literally, however, at least in Euahlayi, the word BYAMEE means 'great one. In its sense as the name of the All Father it is not supposed to be used by women or by the uninitiated.
Such, for example, are Baiame, Daramulun, Bunjil of Australia, perhaps Supu of the Melanesian island of Vate. +678+. In Polynesia there is a better-defined cosmogonic anthropomorphism. The Hawaiian creators Kane and Tangaloa appear to be fully formed deities. The Maoris have the divine figures Heaven and Earth, whose children are the producers of all things in the world.
They could have been conceived of, in the nature of the case, by a race of immortals who never dreamed of such a thing as a ghost. For these gods, the ghost-theory is not required, and is superfluous, even contradictory. Baiame, Cagn, Bunjil, in their adorers' belief, were there; death later intruded among men, but did not affect these divine beings in any way.
At last we reached a tree with a great swelling round its roots. It is in such places that Daramulun lives. The snake went down into the ground, and came up inside the tree, which was hollow. We followed him. There I saw a lot of little Daramuluns, the sons of Baiame. Afterwards, the snake took us into a great hole, in which were a number of snakes.
Institute, 1884. According to Taplin, Nurrumdere was a deified black fellow, who died on earth. This is not the case of Baiame, but is said, rather vaguely, to be true of Daramulun.
My father said that, if it touched a doctor when he was going through, it would hurt his spirit, and when he returned home he would sicken and die. On the other side we saw Baiame sitting in his camp. He was a very great old man with a long beard. He sat with his legs under him, and from his shoulders extended two great quartz-crystals to the sky above him.
These rubbed themselves against me, and did not hurt me, being my familiars. They did this to make me a clever man and a doctor. At the end of the thread was Wombu, the bird of Baiame. We went up through the clouds, and on the other side was the sky. We went through the place where the doctors go through, and it kept opening and shutting very quickly.
But, in the new administration, places must be found for the other old tribal Gods. They are, therefore, set over various departments: Love, War, Agriculture, Medicine, Poetry, Commerce, while one or more of the sons take the places of Apollo and Hermes. There appears to be a very early example of syncretism in Australia. Baiame is "Master of All," far north, on the Barwan.
Word Of The Day