Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/136

 condition. Of prayer no relic remained. Yet there was left a consciousness of a Great Creator, undefined, un- approached by man. The astronomer does not bring down the spheres, but attunes his mind to their harmonies; and the golden link of prayer binds man to the ineffable power which created him. Without it he becomes rudderless on the ocean. When wholesome humility dies out in the mind, unclean spirits fill the void. And so, with the Australian, the relics of worship, retained in his solemn ceremonies, did not bar the way to base superstitions and dread. The darkness of night, the deep recesses of unfathomed pools, the neighbourhood of dense woods which defied the beams of the sun, were all believed to be under the power of some evil one. Yet was the belief vague. No native would voluntarily go alone at night to a haunted region. But when the tribe thought fit to move at night, it did so; and if pressing danger urged him, even a single man would thread his unerring way in the murkiest recesses from which otherwise he would have shrunk.

For years the colonists strove to gain sight of a water-monster described to them by the natives. It dwelt in deep river or mountain pools. Doubtless traditions of dangers from the crocodile, or shark, spread among tribes which knew not the northern rivers, or the sea, invested any deep water with a reputation for containing its monster; and the distorted fancy was thus founded on reality.

One great difficulty in weighing the peculiarities of the Australian race was the diversity of customs in different tribes. The habits of one tribe have often been accepted as the rule of all, and a local observer has built a general theory upon an exception. Thus in some tribes in South Australia cannibalism was a rite. Mr. Gason reported that the Dieyerie tribe (near Lake Hope) were bound to eat a portion of their relations in obedience to a code under which the mother ate her children, or the children the mother, but the father and his children were forbidden to partake of a similar horrible repast, while "uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, grandfathers, and