Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/54

 28 Manning lived on the northern boundaries of the Southern Settlement, where, he says, no missionaries had ever been. His chief informant was an English-speaking black. Black Andy, corroborated by several others; and by Dean Cowper and Archdeacon Günther (mere missionaries). The Archdeacon got his information "from some of the oldest blacks, who, he was satisfied, could not have derived their ideas from white men, as they then had not had intercourse with them." Mr. Manning's accounts include Baiame rooted to his crystal rock, as in Mrs. Langloh Parker's version. Baiame has a son equally "omniscient" with himself, named Grogoragally, elsewhere Boymagela—Mrs. Langloh Parker's All-seeing Spirit, I presume, but I will consult her on the point. For Mrs. Langloh Parker's Paradise, Bullimah, Mr. Manning has Ballima, with Oorooma as the place of fire (Gumby). The son of Baiame watches over conduct, and Baiame acts on his reports. Mr. Manning calls the son a "mediator;" if we say "go-between," rhetorical colouring will vanish. Indeed this kind of "colouring" chiefly consists in using words derived from the Latin. There is also the First Man (Moodgeegally), a Culture Hero. The only prayers are prayers for the souls of the dead, of which a corroborative example is given by Mrs. Langloh Parker, in "The Legend of Eerin" (More Legendary Tales, p. 96). These prayers were not borrowed from Protestant missionaries!" The doctrines were imparted in the mysteries. Mr. Hartland will admit that missionaries have not "constantly expanded" down to 1878 the "biblical" features of this version of 1845-48. Though much corroborated by Mrs. Langloh Parker in 1898, Mr.