Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/52

26 artistic representations of the Kamilarol. Also, I may add, of an old sportsman driving in a dog-cart, who, however, is purely decorative.

Now, as to Dr. Tylor's theory of the name, Balame, as a "missionary translation of the word Creator, used in Scripture lesson-books for God," the name (which occurs in 1840) was first so used by Mr. Ridley, in Gurre Kamilaroi, which is of 1856. I ask for an earlier example. Previously Mr. Threlkeld had tried (and failed) with Eloi and Jehova-ka-biruê, while Mr. Ridley had tried (and failed) wdth Immanueli. Now Baiame is first mentioned (as far as Mr. Tylor knows) by Mr. Horace Hale, speaking of about 1840. So Baiame, in 1840, did not come out of a "Scripture lesson-book" of 1856. That theory wall not hold water. Moreover, our evidence for Baiame, in 1840, is also our evidence that Baiame was worshipped at Wellington with songs, when the missionaries first came there. Mr. Hale's evidence for this is that of Mr. Threlkeld, who had been at missionary work there since 1828. Perhaps Mr. Hartland will now admit that the missionaries did not introduce Baiame at Wellington and district, where they found him already extant.

However, if it be granted. that the missionaries did not bring in Baiame, it may be fairly argued that Christian ideas crystallised later round a native conception of a powerful Being. Thus the creative work of Burambin, son of Baiame, may, by my opponents, be credited to a missionary sermon on a text of St. John which need not be cited. Mr. Hartland remarks that Baiame's "biblical characteristics," as reported by missionaries, "constantly expanded" down to