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I shall now demonstrate that the religion patronised by the Australian Supreme Being, and inculcated in his Mysteries, is actually used to counteract the immoral character which natives acquire by associating with Anglo-Saxon Christians. Mr. Howitt gives an account of the Jeraeil, or Mysteries of the Kurnai.
Women were the seekers, slowly increasing their efficiency. Very much the same account of the primitive sexual division in work was given by an Australian Kurnai to Messrs.
Some adjacent tribes eat them only at a pinch, others refrain from them. The clans of the Narrinyeri are mostly localized, and the clan-names are not now those of the totems; the totems are eaten. The Kurnai show the greatest divergence from the ordinary type they have neither totemic clans nor exogamous classes; their rule of exogamy relates to districts.
So with the other animals allotted to the sexes respectively in other tribes. For example, among the Kurnai all emu-wrens were "brothers" of the men, and all the men were emu-wrens; all superb warblers were "sisters" of the women, and all the women were superb warblers.
+533+. This adoption of a guardian spirit by the individual is the most definite early divergence from the totemistic clan organization. An intermediate stage is represented by the sex-patrons of Southeast Australia, who embody a declaration of independence by the women. In this region, moreover, among the Kurnai, not only shamans but all other men have each his special "brother" and protector.
But, while it is easy enough to produce evidence to recognised phantasms of the dead in civilised life, it would be very difficult indeed to discover many good examples in what we know about savages. Some Fijian instances are given by Mr. Fison in his and Mr. Howitt's 'Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Others occur in the narrative of John Tanner, a captive from childhood among the Red Indians.
'Mungan left the earth, and ascended to the sky, where he still remains. Here Mungan-ngaur, a Being not defined as spirit, but immortal, and dwelling in heaven, is Father, or rather grandfather, not maker, of the Kurnai.
The Chepara tribe, who call it bribbun, have a custom that, 'if seen by a woman, or shown by a man to a woman, the punishment to both is death. Among the Kurnai, the sacred mystery of the turndun is preserved by a legend, which gives a supernatural sanction to secrecy.
There could not be better evidence of the presence of the ethical element in the religious mysteries. Among the Yao, as among the Australian Kurnai, the central secret lesson of religion is the lesson of unselfishness. It is not stated that Mtanga instituted or presides over the mysteries.
M'Lennan collected a very large mass of testimony to prove the wide existence of this cause of paucity of women. Till that evidence is published, I can only say that it was sufficient, in Mr. M'Pherson, and other English authorities. Mr. Fison's 'Kamilaroi and Kurnai' contains some notable, though not to my mind convincing, arguments on the other side.
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