Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/313

 SUPERSTITIONS AND TRADITIONS. 235 its new habitation a species of red-bill, a bird frequenting the seabeach, and noted for its shrill shrieks during the night, accompanies it. It appears to be a modern idea of theirs, adopted since their knowledge of the existence of a white race of men, that their souls will at a future period become white men. However, such is their belief, and all white people are in their opinion no more than the re-incorporated souls of their forefathers. So firmly persuaded are, or at least were they of this, that they even ventured to identify some settlers with natives long since dead, giving the former the names of the latter. The last words of Ngarbi, a Port Lincoln native, who was executed in Adelaide, were, that "by-and-by he should become a white man," although he had been made acquainted with more correct views. These two apparently contradictory opinions, that an island receives the souls of the departed and that they reappear as white men, may perhaps we quite compatible by the natives assuming that the island is only their temporary abode; which is the more likely, as they certainly believe in the pre-existence of the souls of black men, and also assign the island as their previous abode. I do not think that originally they had any idea of retribution in a future life for actions done in this, but they seem to think that the fate of man in this world is in some degree dependent on his good or bad conduct. The following anecdote will best illustrate their views on the subject: It was reported by a native that at or near Streaky Bay a black man had been shot by a whaling party for spearing a dog belonging to them, and which had been furiously attacking the native; some time after, the crew of a whaler wrecked in that neighbourhood came overland to Port Lincoln, and when it was hinted that perhaps one of them had shot the black man, the natives at once assigned that act of cruelty as the cause of the shipwreck. The most prominent in the superstitions of the Port Lincoln Aborigines is their belief in the existence of a fiendish monster, named Márralye, who is described as a man who assumes the shape and power of a bird, so that he can fly through the air. He is most feared during the night-time, when he is supposed to pounce upon his