Note (return) — LECTURE IV

On the whole, when we survey these practices and beliefs of the Central Australian aborigines, we may perhaps conclude that, if they do not amount to a worship of the dead, they at least contain the elements out of which such a worship might easily be developed. At first sight, no doubt, their faith in the transmigration of souls seems and perhaps really is a serious impediment to a worship of the dead in the strict sense of the word. For if they themselves are the dead come to life again, it is difficult to see how they can worship the spirits of the dead without also worshipping each other, since they are all by hypothesis simply these worshipful spirits reincarnated. But though in theory every living man and woman is merely an ancestor or ancestress born again and therefore should be his or her equal, in practice they appear to admit that their forefathers of the remote alcheringa or dream time were endowed with many marvellous powers which their modern reincarnations cannot lay claim to, and that accordingly these ancestral spirits were more to be reverenced, were in fact more worshipful, than their living representatives. On this subject Messrs. Spencer and Gillen observe: "The Central Australian native is firmly convinced, as will be seen from the accounts relating to their alcheringa ancestors, that the latter were endowed with powers such as no living man now possesses. They could travel underground or mount into the sky, and could make creeks and water-courses, mountain-ranges, sand-hills, and plains. In very many cases the actual names of these natives are preserved in their traditions, but, so far as we have been able to discover, there is no instance of any one of them being regarded in the light of a 'deity.' Amongst the Central Australian natives there is never any idea of appealing for assistance to any one of these Alcheringa ancestors in any way, nor is there any attempt made in the direction of propitiation, with one single exception in the case of the mythic creature called Wollunqua, amongst the Warramunga tribe, who, it may be remarked, is most distinctly regarded as a snake and not as a human being."134 Thus far Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. From their testimony it appears that with a single possible exception, to which I will return immediately, the Central Australian aborigines are not known to worship any of their dead ancestors; they indeed believe their remote forefathers of the alcheringa age to have been endowed with marvellous powers which they themselves do not possess; but they do not regard these ancestral spirits as deities, nor do they pray and sacrifice to them for help and protection. The single possible exception to this general rule known to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen is the case of the mythical water-snake called Wollunqua, who is in a sense revered and propitiated by the Warramunga tribe. The case is interesting and instructive as indicative of an advance from magic towards religion in the strict sense of the word. Accordingly I propose to consider it somewhat fully.