Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/513

VIII the tribes of South-east Australia, but what I have given will show their character, and serve for a comparison with those from Central Australia. As to the actual character of these half-human, half-animal actors of the tales, something may be said, and perhaps the best example is that of the Kurnai.

With them certain animals, birds, and reptiles have each its own individual name, but all are known collectively as Muk-jiak, that is, "excellent flesh" (or meat); while other creatures used for food are merely Jiak. Now in all these tales, in which a bird-man or reptile-man or animal-man takes part, in a twofold character, it is a Muk-kurnai. This may be translated as "eminent man or men," the Kurnai of the legend being thus distinguished from the Kurnai of the present time. The whole term may be fairly interpreted as "eminent ancestors," for they were not only the predecessors of the tribe, but also in one sense the Wehntwin, that is, the Grandfathers. It may be added that there are not only Muk-kurnai but also Muk-rukut (Rukut being woman). The Kurnai say that the bird Leatherhead is appropriately placed among the Muk-rukut, because it is continually chattering. The Muk-kurnai and the Muk-jiak animals are therefore the same as the ancestors, and a suggestion naturally arises that these latter were also the totems.

The Mura-muras, Alcheringa ancestors, and Muk-kurnai are all on somewhat the same level, while the tribal All-father as represented by Mungan-ngaua belongs to a distinctly higher level of mental development.

The three types of belief represented by the Alcheringa ancestors, the Mura-muras and the Muk-kurnai have certain features in common. They recognise a primitive time before man existed, and when the earth was inhabited by beings, the prototypes of, but more powerful in magic, than the native tribes. Those beings, if they did not create man, at least perfected him from some unformed and scarcely human creatures. Although this appears when one looks at the subject broadly, there are yet differences which distinguish the several types of belief from each other. In the legendary