Magic and Religion. Lang Andrew
Nor can mythologists argue (1) that Biblical myth is a modified survival of savage myth, and (2) that such natural and obvious savage myths as the kneading of man out of clay, the origin of death ('the Fall'), and the tradition of the Deluge are necessarily borrowed by savages from the Bible. This is, indeed, to argue in a vicious circle. Again, was the Australian and American myth of a race of wise birds, earlier than man, borrowed from the famous chorus in the 'Birds' of Aristophanes? Is the Arunta theory of evolution borrowed from Darwin, or their theory of reincarnation from Buddhism? Borrowing of ideas seems only to be in favour when savage ideas resemble more or less those of Christianity.
Mr. Tylor remarks that Prince Maximilian, who knew Mandanese better than Catlin, found among them no 'Great Manitou' – so called. But he did find a Creator whose name means 'Lord of Earth.' Was He borrowed from the whites? Finally, on this point, would savages who remained so utterly un-Christian as the Mandans, adopt from missionaries just one myth – the Deluge – and make that the central feature in their national ritual? Indeed this seems very improbable conduct! Nothing is more conservative than ritual: that is notorious.
We do not follow Mr. Tylor into South America. If our case is proved, by his own not repudiated authorities, for North America, that suffices us. We turn to Australia.
Let us first take the typical Australian case of Baiame, Pei-a-mei, or Baiamai, at present alleged by Mr. Howitt and others to be the moral creative being of many tribes,17 and served, without sacrifice, in their mysteries. Mr. Tylor first finds him mentioned as a creator by Mr. Horace Hale, whose book is of 1840.18 'Next, in 1850, Baiame was spoken of by a native to some German Moravian missionaries as a being who, according to their 'sorcerers or doctors,' made all things, but was easy to anger, and was to be appeased by dances. Thus he was accepted by the most notoriously conservative class, the class most jealous of missionary influence, the sorcerers. Omitting for the moment a later description of Baiame as seen by a black devotee in a vision, we turn to Mr. Tylor's theory of the origin of this god. Mr. Ridley (who began his missionary career in Victoria in 1854) gives a pleasing account of Baiame as a creator, with a paradise for the good. According to Mr. Ridley, 'Baiame' is discovered by Mr. Greenway to be derived from baia, 'to make,' and he concludes that 'for ages unknown' the blacks have called God 'the Maker.'19
Mr. Tylor now asks, 'Was Baiame,' who is, he avers, 'near 1840 so prominent a divine figure among the Australians, known to them at all a few years earlier?' He decides that before 1840 Baiame was 'unknown to well-informed (white) observers.' This, of course, would not prove that Baiame was unknown to the blacks. As for the observers, who are three in number, one, Buckley the convict, in spite of his thirty-two years with the blacks, is of no real value. We cannot trust a man who lied so freely as to say that in Australia he 'speared salmon'! and often saw the fabled monster, the Bunyip.20 Buckley could not read, and his book was made up by a Mr. Morgan out of 'rough notes and memoranda … and by conversation.' If, then, as Buckley says, 'they have no notion of a Supreme Being' (p. 57), we may discount that; Buckley's idea of such a being was probably too elevated. Moreover he never mentions the confessedly ancient native mysteries, in one of which among certain tribes the being is revealed.21 Mr. Tylor's next well-informed observer before 1840, Mr. Backhouse, a Quaker, takes his facts straight from the third witness, Mr. Threlkeld; he admits it for some of them, and it is true, in this matter, of all of them.22 Buckley being out of court, and Backhouse being a mere copy of Mr. Threlkeld, what has Mr. Threlkeld to say? What follows is curious. Mr. Threlkeld (1834-1857) does not name Baiame, but speaks of a big supernatural black man, called Koin, who carries wizards up to the sky, inspires sorcerers, walks about with a fire-stick, and so on.23 To honour him boys' front teeth are knocked out in the initiatory stages.
As soon as I read this passage I perceived that Mr. Threlkeld was amalgamating such a goblin as the Kurnai call 'Brewin' with the high God of the Mysteries. In 1881, when Mr. Howitt, with Mr. Fison, wrote 'Kamilaroi and Kurnai,' he knew no higher being among that tribe than the goblin Brewin. But, being initiated later, Mr. Howitt discovered that the God of the Mysteries is Mungan-ngaur = 'Our Father' (this shows the slight value of negative evidence). Women know about Brewin, the goblin master of sorcerers, but the knowledge of Mungan-ngaur is hidden from them under awful penalties.24 Not only I, but Mr. Horace Hale (1840), came to this opinion: that Koin is a goblin, Baiame a god, as we shall see. In the same way, where Baiame is supreme, Daramulun is sometimes a goblin or fiend.
Mr. Threlkeld very properly did not use the name of the fiend Koin as equivalent to 'God' in his translation of the Gospel of St. Luke into the native tongue (1831-1834). He there used for God Eloi, and no doubt did the same in his teaching; he also tried the word Jeliovaka-birun. Neither word has taken with the blacks; neither word occurs in their traditions. The word, though forced on them, has not been accepted by them. That looks ill for the theory of borrowing.
Here, then, of Mr. Tylor's three negative witnesses, who, before 1840, knew not Baiame, Mr. Threlkeld alone is of value. As Mr. Hale says, Mr. Threlkeld was (1826-1857) the first worker at the dialects of those Baiame-worshipping tribes, the Kamilaroi of the Wellington Valley, in Victoria. But whence did Mr. Hale get what Mr. Tylor cites, his knowledge in 1840 of Baiame? He, an American savant on an exploring expedition, could not well find out esoteric native secrets. I shall prove that Mr. Hale got his knowledge of Baiame from Mr. Tylor's own negative witness, Mr. Threlkeld. Mr. Hale says that 'when the missionaries first came to Wellington,' Baiame was worshipped with songs. 'There was a native famous for the composition of these songs or hymns, which, according to Mr. Threlkeld, were passed on,' &c. Mr. Hale thus declares (Mr. Tylor probably overlooked the remark) that when the missionaries first came to Wellington (where Baiame is the Creator) they found Baiame there before them!25 Then, why did Mr. Threlkeld not name Baiame? I think because Mr. Hale says that Baiame's name and sacred dance were brought in by natives from a distance, and (when he is writing) had fallen into disuse.26 Had, then, a missionary before 1840 evolved Baiame from Kamilaroi baia, 'to make' (for that is Mr. Tylor's theory of the origin of the word 'Baiame'), and taught the name to distant natives as a word for his own God; and had these proselytising distant dancing natives brought Baiame's name and dance to Wellington? Are missionaries dancing masters? They would teach prayer and kneeling, or give rosaries; dances are no part of our religion. To demonstrate missionary influence here we must find a missionary, not Mr. Threlkeld, who was studying and working on the Kamilaroi tongue before 1840. There was no such missionary. Finally, Mr. Hale runs counter to Mr. Tylor's theory of borrowing from whites, though Mr. Tylor does not quote his remark. The ideas of Baiame may 'possibly' be derived from Europeans, 'though,' says Mr. Hale, 'the great unwillingness which the natives always evince to adopt any custom or opinion from them militates against such a supposition.' So strong is this reluctance to borrow ideas from the whites, that the blacks of the centre have not even borrowed the idea that children are a result of the intercourse of the sexes! Here, then, in part of the district studied by Mr. Threlkeld in 1826-1857, an American savant (who certainly received the facts from Mr. Threlkeld) testifies to Baiame as recently brought from a distance by natives, but as prior to the arrival of missionaries, and most unlikely to have been borrowed.
Whence, then, came Baiame? Mr. Tylor thinks the evidence 'points rather to Baiame being the missionary translation of the word "creator," used in missionary lesson books for God.' But by 1840, when Baiame is confessedly 'so prominent a divine figure,' Mr. Threlkeld's were the only translations and grammatical tracts in the Kamilaroi tongue. Now Mr. Threlkeld did not translate 'creator' (or anything else) by 'Baiame;' he used 'Eloi' and 'Jehovah-ka,' and the natives would have neither of these words. Where is Mr. Tylor's reason, then, for holding that before 1840 (for it must be prior to that date if it is going to help his argument) any missionary ever rendered creator by 'Baiame'? He has just argued that no 'observer' then knew the name Baiame, so no observer could have introduced a name Baiame which he did not know; yet there was the name; Mr.
Howitt,
Ridley,
Howitt,
Backhouse,
He was supposed to live on an island, on fish which came at his call, probably a childlike answer to a tedious questioner.