Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/35

Rh (Ungambikula) Such beings might verge on the "eternal," but they tailed off, and vanished into animal myth. Mr. Hartland, I daresay, will not contradict my evidence for the "self-existing" beings "out of nothing," for it is not given by a missionary. Here then the Arunta have "a philosophical conception" which is a little surprising; though they spoil it, still they have it. "Antecedently improbable" it may be, but there it is!

Now, as to the antecedent improbability of savages who cannot count up to seven possessing the beliefs which I attribute to them, is that improbability so great? I dislike offering a theory about what occurred in "the Dream Time" (Alcheringa) behind our historical knowledge of mankind. But I will venture on a surmise, on the lines of St. Paul (Romans i. 19). It is a guess, not a "glimpse." As soon as man could make anything, he had, undeniably, the idea of "making." But he was surrounded by things which he certainly had not made, yet which were adapted to his use. It is conceivable that, possessing the idea of making, he guessed that these things were "made." To take examples of savage speculation, from regions far apart, an Eskimo said: "Certainly there must be some Being who made all these things. He must be very good too" (Cranz, i., 199). A Kaffir said to M. Arbrousset: "Twelve years ago I went to feed my flocks. I sat down upon a rock and asked myself sorrowful questions, yes, sorrowful because I was unable to answer them Who can have given to the earth the wisdom and power to produce?" (Casalis, The Bassutos, p. 239.) These are missionary reports, but I cannot always dismiss a statement because a missionary is the reporter, nor is missionary evidence scouted by my adversaries when it seems to tell on the other side. Of course an Eskimo, much more a Kaffir, is far from the beginnings of the race. But I surmise that "the high faculties of early