nine or ten days, and that part of them was a solemn meal and a solemn bathing, or purification by water; thereafter instruction was given. So, also, a young Brahman must reside with his preceptor for some time, until he has gained a thorough knowledge of the holy books; he must pass through certain purificatory rites, which remove the taint of former sin; one of these is the cutting off of the hair, and with this seems to correspond the knocking out of a front tooth practised by some of our tribes in Australia.* The singing and the dancing are everywhere essential parts of the heathen worship, and the dance is in its origin religious.

(G.) Then come the washing and the purification which I have just spoken of, but after that they join hands all round, dance round the fire, and then jump into it and through it.

(9.) Analogies to this purification and protection by fire are abundant. In Bretagne, at this hour, the farmers protect their horses from evil influences by the service of fire. They kindle fires at nightfall; then, at dawn of day, the horses are led thrice round the fires, and a particular prayer, known only to a few, is said before the dying flame; as the last words are pronounced, they all leap on the embers with their feet joined. The ancient British Kelts, to which stock the modern Bretons belong, did much the same thing. On May Day the Druids used to light large fires on the summits of the highest hills, into which they drove their four-footed beasts, using certain ceremonies to expiate the sins of the people. Until very lately, in different parts of Ireland, it was the common practice to kindle fires in milking yards on the first day of May, and then many women and children leaped through them, and the cattle were driven through in order to avert evil influences. In ancient Rome, on the feast of Pales, in April, the same forms of purification and dedication were observed. The Hottentots of the present day retain the old customs, for they make their cattle pass through the fire as a preservative against the attacks of wild dogs. In India, the youth, when about to be invested with the sacred thread, stands opposite the sun and walks thrice round the fire; and in the marriage ceremony the bride is led thrice round the sacred fire. An incantation used by the oldest Chaldæan sourcerers has these words: "May the god Fire, the hero, dispel their enchantments or spells for the injury of others." An Australian gin, going to the river to fetch water after nightfall, carries for protection a burning stick; and the men

* In some parts of Australia the hair is cut off or singed off in the Bora, ·

in the camp, when they think an evil spirit is near, throw firebrands at him to drive him away. We may not wonder, then, that our Australian black fellows, if, as I believe, their ancestors came from Babylonian lands, have not forgotten the fire observances, and still trust in the protection of the fire-god.

2

So far the Bora and its analogies. I have thus considered at some length the institution of the Bora, both because it is the most important of all the social regulations of our aboriginal tribes, and because its universal distribution among them, although with slight local differences in the manner of its celebration, seems to me a strong proof that our black tribes are all brethren of the same race, and that they are of the same common origin as the rest of mankind, their nearest kin being the blacks of Africa. Is it possible that so many tribes, differing in language and confined by their laws and habits each to its own hunting ground, should have evolved from their own consciousness ceremonies so similar, and which, when examined, correspond in so many points with the religiousness of the ancient world? How is it that the blacks of Australia and the blacks of Guinea have similar ceremonies of initiation? Is it not because they have come from the same ethnic source and have a common ancestry and common traditions?

And now to complete the task which I proposed to myself, I would add a few words of aboriginal mythology, as another point in the argument for the unity of the human family.

Our native races are attentive observers of the stars; as they sit or lie around the camp fire after nightfall, their gaze naturally turns to the starry vault above, and there they see the likenesses of many things with which they are conversant in their daily life; young men dancing a corroboree (Orion) and a group of damsels looking at them (the Pleiades) making music to their dance; the opossum, the emu, the crow, and so on. But the old men say that the regions "above the sky" are the home of the spirits of the dead, and that there are fig-trees there, and many other pleasant things, and that the head of them is a great man Minny; he is not visible, but they all agree that he is in the sky. A greater than he is the great Garabooung, who, while in earth, was always attended by a small man, but now the two shine as comrades in the sky-the "Heavenly Twins." Both Garabooung and Minny are "skeletons." In his mortal state, Garabooung was a man of great rank and power; he was so tall that his feet could touch the bottom of the deepest rivers; his only food was snakes and eels. One day, not being hungry, he buried

then a

a snake and an eel; when he came back to eat them he saw fire issuing from the ground where they were; he was warned. by his companion, the little man, not to approach, but he declared he did not fear, and boldly came near; whirlwind seized them and carried them up "above the sky," where he and his companion still are, and "can be seen any starlit night."

These two legends are interesting. Minny is to them the father and king of the black races, whom he now rules and will rule in spirit-land; he was once a mortal, but now he is a "skeleton,❞—a spiritualised being without flesh and blood; and so our black fellows retain the simple primitive beliefs of mankind; they have heard nothing of annihilation or absorption into the infinite. I observe also that the name of their great father is the same as that given on the hieroglyphic inscriptions to the first king of Egypt, Menee-by Herodotus called Menes-the head of the First Dynasty of mortals. He was a public benefactor, for he executed several important works, and taught his people the worship of Phtah, the great artificer-god of Egypt. He must have some mythical relation to the human race, for in Greece he is Minos, king of Crete, "Minoia regna," author of many useful laws, and afterwards a judge of the shades of the dead; in another part of Greece he is Minyas, the founder of a race of heroes; in India he is Menu, and in Old Germany Mannus; for I take all these to be the same name.

The story of Garabooung seems to correspond with that of the Dioscouroi-Castor and Pollux,-who were also mighty heroes and benefactors of mankind. The ancient Germans worshipped them in a sacred grove, and called them Alcis.

How have our black fellows got hold of the name Minny, and such a myth about him? Were the name and the myth invented by them? Are they not rather a survival-derived from a common origin of traditions which belong to the once undivided human family?

In conclusion, let any one ask me how it is that our aborigines, if they are of such an origin as I assign to them, have sunk so low in the scale of humanity as to be regarded among the most degraded of the races of men. I deny that this estimate of them is well founded; on the contrary, I assert that it was formed long ago by those who imperfectly understood the habits and social organisation of our native tribes, and has been ignorantly passed from mouth to mouth ever since; that, when they are thoroughly understood, our black fellows are not the despicable savages that they are too often represented to be. They have, or had, virtues which

we might profitably imitate; for they are faithful and affectionate to those who treat them kindly; they have rules of family morality which are enforced by severe penalties; they show the greatest respect to age; they carefully tend and never desert the sick and infirm; their boys are compelled to content themselves with meagre fare, and to bring the best of the food which they have found and present it to the aged members of the tribe and to those who have large families. I am assured by one who has had much intercourse with them for thirty years that he never knew them to tell a lie, and that his property was always safe in their hands; another who has been familiar with them since he was a child says :— "Naturally they are an affectionate, peaceful people, and, considering that they have never been taught to know right from wrong, their behaviour is wonderful; I leave my house open, the camp close by, and feel the greatest confidence in

them."

Then, again, although the material civilisation of the world was commenced by the race of Ham, yet the task soon fell from their hands, for morally they were unfit for it; for the conservation and first dissemination of a pure and ennobling religion we are indebted to the race of Shem; while the sons of Japheth have gone forth to rule the earth and the sea -"audax Iapeti genus"-and to spread abroad the blessings of good government and the arts and inventions of an enlightened age to the remotest lands. The Hamites, on the other hand, have continued to sink in the social scale, have been persecuted and oppressed by the other races and thus debased; and whenever, as in Australia, the sky above and the earth beneath have conspired to render the means of life to them meagre and precarious, there the process of decay has been accelerated, and physically their condition has been very low; but still, among their social institutions, we have this evening, I trust, seen traces of their having once enjoyed a better state of things. Would that we had a full record of what they really are before they pass entirely away from among us!

THE CHAIRMAN (D. Howard, Esq., F.C.S., &c.).—I am sure that all present would have been glad if the author of the paper could have been here to receive our thanks for the very interesting and valuable information he has been the means of placing before us on

a subject of so much importance. Such records as these of what is to be learned of the far distant races of the world are indeed of great value. It is true that the idea has gained ground, in not few quarters, that the aborigines of Australia are so utterly degraded and so devoid of the ordinary distinguishing marks of humanity that they can hardly be said to be men at all, or, at any rate, men of the same species as ourselves. But the testimony we have had to-night from one who has long lived among them, and who, therefore, speaks of his own knowledge, is extremely valuable, inasmuch as it presents a very different view, and makes it clear that those who take the trouble to become acquainted with these races, and by treating them with kindness come to know them intimately, are able to tell a very different story from that which is told by those who have only come in contact with them to tyrannise over and ill-treat them. It has been frequently and boldly stated that the aborigines of Australia have no religious customs. I am afraid that a great many ignorant people are too apt to be shy of making their religion public, so that others may conclude they have none at all; why, therefore, should we suppose that the habit of reticence which induces so many to keep their religious feelings in the background is not to be met with in other races than our own? Is it not a rule that, what men care most about, they talk least about, especially before strangers? And, if this be so, ought we not, when we find it stated that such and such a race is entirely devoid of any religious feeling or sentiment, to assume that the assertion is made from want of knowledge, and that in all probability the contrary is the fact. We know it is being brought out more and more clearly that the negro race, whose fetish worship we have heard so much about, know nothing about fetish worship, such as is frequently described; and, therefore, if most of the statements that have been made about them are unreliable, so also may be those that have been put forward with regard to the Australian aborigines, whose very remarkable religious customs have been traced out by the author of this paper, as well as the extraordinary connexion that exists between their religious customs and those practised by the black race in Africa. It is, consequently, for those who say that these natives of Australia are not of the same race or nature as our own, to explain how the religious ideas, of which we have now heard, can have sprung up independently, especially the idea of that dim, shadowy kind of