Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/460

434 than that of being always perpendicular to it, with a permanent sky over our heads. Thus we, in so far, perpetuate a savage belief; and more than this, there are even now persons who, otherwise sane, believe the earth to be a flat plane. It seems that such pseudo-beliefs are an inheritance to us from our savage ancestors, and from which we are not able to free ourselves.

The beliefs as to the stars, which I have noted, and the manner in which they are named, seem to throw some light on the origin of the names, and even of the legends of the constellations of the northern hemisphere.

The Dieri tribe think that the spirit of a dead person can visit a sleeper. He reports such a dream to the medicine-man, who, if he considers it to be indeed a vision, directs that food be left at the grave and a fire lighted at it. The Narrang-ga likewise think that the human spirit can leave the body in sleep, and communicate with the spirits of others, or of the dead. These spirits wander for a time as ghosts in the bush, and can consume food, and warm themselves at fires left lighted.

The Dieri also believe that when any one dies his spirit goes up to the Piriwilpa, that is the sky, but also that it can roam about the earth. The Narrinyeri thought that the spirits of the dead went up to the sky, Wai-irre-warra; and the Buandik, who lived next to them, along the coast eastward, believed that there were two spirits in mankind, which they called Bo-ong. At death one went west, down into the sea, and would return a white man; the other went into cloudland. They said that the Bo-ong would go up there, where everything is to be found better than on the earth. A fat kangaroo is said to be like the kangaroos of the clouds. All the tribes which formed the Wotjo nation believed that a man's spirit, Gulkan-gulkan, can leave the body during