Note 624 — Chapter VI · [168] DISCUSSION OF KINSHIP

Another instance where a white woman was received by a man as his daughter and accepted into the tribe and into all her rights and relationships, is told by Macgillivray, loc. cit., i., p. 303. She was shipwrecked, came into the power of the natives, and, of course, lived in a very miserable condition. Her only comfort was derived from the man who imagined that she was his reborn daughter. Henderson says that among the blacks of New South Wales the belief in white men being dead relatives who had returned was quite general. Such white men were accepted into the tribe and cordially treated. Loc. cit., p. 161.

For other statements about white men being reincarnated dead relatives see Wilhelmi, Trans. R.S.V., v. p. 189. Br. Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, ii. p. 224. (Article by Chauncy) ibid., p. 307 (article by Howitt). R. H. Mathews, Jour. and Proc. R.S.N.S.W., xxxviii. (1905), p. 349. W. E. Roth, Bull. 5th, p. 16. R. H. Mathews, Jour. and Proc. R.S.N.S.W., xl. pp. 113, 114. Earl, loc. cit., p. 241. Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 445, 446. The latter says that the natives were "ready to do anything" for the white people, once they recognized in them their relatives.