Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/382

356 beings, such as Brewin of the Kurnai, or the Ngarrang of the Wurunjerri. Ngarrang is described as being like a man with a big beard and hairy arms and hands, who lived in the large swellings which are to be seen at the butts of some of the gum-trees, such as the Red Gum, which grows on the river flats, in the Wurunjerri country. The Ngarrang came out at night in order to cast things of evil magic into incautious people passing by their haunts. The effect of their magic was to make people lame. As they were invisible to all but the medicine-men, it was to them that people had recourse when they thought that a Ngarrang had caught them. The medicine-man by his art extracted the magic in the form of quartz, bone, wood, or other things.

Other medicine-men were bards who devoted their poetic faculties to the purposes of enchantment, such as the Bunjil-yenjin of the Kurnai, whose peculiar branch of magic was composing and singing potent love charms.

At first sight the subject of this chapter might seem to be a very simple one, since the practices of the medicine-man may appear to be no more than the actions of cunning cheats, by which they influence others to their own personal benefit. But on a nearer inspection of the subject it becomes evident that there is more than this to be said. They believe more or less in their own powers, perhaps because they believe in those of others. The belief in magic in its various forms—in dreams, omens, and warnings—is so universal, and mingles so intimately with the daily life of the aborigines, that no one, not even those who practise deceit themselves, doubts the power of other medicine-men, or that if men fail to effect their magical purposes the failure is due to error in the practice, or to the superior skill or power of some adverse practitioner.

Allowing for all conscious and intentional deception on the part of these men, there still remains a residuum of faith in themselves which requires to be noticed, and if possible to be explained.

It is in this aspect that the question has shown itself as being most difficult to me. The problem has been how to separate falsehood from truth, cunning imposture from bona